Barristers of the Month
The Honorable M & David H. Mo Montgomery County Common Pleas Court
Pickrel Schaeffer & Ebeling Co., LPA
T
he Dayton Bar Association is fortunate to have so many leaders in its ranks committed to finding opportunities to give back to the community. Whether the contributions be through respectful advocacy, thoughtful counsel on complicated transactions, or investment of time in our youth, we identify such a leader each month to recognize. But in observance of Valentine’s Day, we recognize as Barrister(s) of the Month, a couple that represents the absolute best our community has to offer: David and the Honorable Mary Montgomery. Mary, even as a child, always knew she wanted to be a lawyer. Growing up, her grandmother had a basement full of books, and Mary loved spending her time in that personal library reading everything she could find. Whether it was To Kill a Mockingbird, or a biography about a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Mary was hooked. David, on the other hand, went to college expecting to have a future in medicine. Enrolled at Miami University studying zoology, David was taking the usual pre-med courses to prep for the MCAT when a friend’s parent asked whether he had ever thought about the law. He gave it some thought, added a history major in his junior year, and sat for the LSAT. Even though he also took the MCAT, he did well enough on the LSAT that he thought a career in law may be more viable than he previously believed. He decided to give it a shot, applied to law school, and has never regretted his decision. Mary and David first met as students during their time at University of Dayton School of Law. Their first encounters were by happenstance: both of their last names started with “M,” so they often found themselves sitting next to each other in classes that had
assigned seating. As days went by, the two shared the same friend groups and became close friends themselves. Both worked hard in school, but Mary distinctly recalls that David would often ask for her notes whenever he “needed” to miss class to see a Bruce Springsteen concert. Mary was happy to share her notes with David, and soon the two would share a life together. After law school, Mary joined the Montgomery County Prosecutor’s Office, and David joined the law firm of Altick & Corwin, where he worked on municipal law, real estate transactions and a handful of criminal defense matters. In 2000, David joined Pickrel Schaeffer and Ebeling, where he now serves as a shareholder, and was soon thrown headfirst into an unprecedented transactional matter: the development of the Greene Towne Center. After practicing for only a couple of years, David found himself in a matter that would be transformational and challenging for any practitioner due to the number of “firsts” it involved: The Greene would be the first mixed-use development in the area, it would be the first time Greene County had ever made use of public-private funding, and it would be the first ever community entertainment district in the area at a time when only five or six had been developed across the state. The project, to say the least, was ambitious. David was able to help make the project a success by collaborating with engineers, architects, zoning professionals, developers, and the counsel of the interested parties. David credits this experience with teaching him the value in being direct and candid as a lawyer, rather than trying to hide the ball and play cloak and dagger games. He learned that sometimes
there is a time and place for being guarded,
but more often than not, a straightforward approach will often yield better results. As a result of David’s hard work (and, as David would point out, the hard work of so many others involved in the massive project), the entire community has benefited with a beloved social space. As David’s transactional practice took off, Mary found herself thriving in the courtroom. For twenty-one years, Mary served as an Assistant Prosecuting Attorney with the Montgomery County Prosecutor’s Office. She served as a Supervising Attorney at Care House where she prosecuted felony crimes involving physical and sexual abuse of children. She then became Intake Supervisor for the Grand Jury, before she was promoted to Criminal Division Trial Supervisor, where she trained and managed multiple assistant prosecuting attorneys on multiple judges’ criminal dockets. In March, 2014, Mary earned the position of Chief of the Civil Division, where she and her staff reprecontinued on page 7
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Dayton Bar Briefs February 2020
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