David B. Oakley

Mr. Oakley is a Shareholder and a member of Poole Brooke Plumlee PC’s litigation team. He focuses his litigation practice in land use and environmental law. Mr. Oakley holds a degree in geology and worked for a geophysical consulting firm before attending law school. His background as a geologist provides him with invaluable insight into environmental regulatory issues. Mr. Oakley is able to assist his clients to negotiate various state and federal environmental laws and regulations. He is a member of Poole Brooke Plumlee’s brownfield remediation team which seeks to restore formerly contaminated and blighted properties into land suitable for economically beneficial uses.

Additionally, he has extensive experience in the areas of commercial litigation, premises liability, products liability, insurance defense, asbestos defense, condemnation/eminent domain, § 1983 defense, complex litigation, real estate litigation and commercial and residential landlord-tenant litigation. He has been repeatedly selected as a Rising Star by  Virginia Super Lawyers in Environmental Law and, in 2015,  was selected by his peers to be in included in Virginia Business magazine’s Legal Elite in the category of Environmental Law.

Mr. Oakley’s appellate practice includes representing clients in all appellate courts of the Commonwealth of Virginia and North Carolina as well as the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals and the United States Supreme Court. Mr. Oakley has litigated numerous high profile cases and appeals, including the constitutionality of Virginia’s marriage laws on behalf of a local court clerk who was sued for enforcing the laws as written and passed by the General Assembly and citizens of Virginia. In the landmark case of Bostic v. Schaefer, Mr. Oakley led the defense team for Norfolk Circuit Court Clerk George Schaefer—focusing the argument on the states’ right to define marriage under the Eleventh Amendment of the Constitution. A divided panel of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the laws and the United States Supreme Court refused to review the decision. Virginia’s Attorney General refused to defend the constitutionality of these laws, leaving Clerk Schaefer as the only named defendant asking the courts to find the Commonwealth of Virginia held the power to define marriage. Clerk Schaefer’s participation in the case and subsequent appeals brought clarity to the law in Virginia and other states within the Fourth Circuit.

Mr. Oakley is licensed to practice in all state courts for Virginia and North Carolina.  He is also admitted to practice in all United States District Courts in Virginia and North Carolina, the United States Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals and the United States Supreme Court.