Dale Laster Lessne is counsel in the Princeton, NJ office of Hill Wallack, LLP, where she is a member of the Eminent Domain and Environmental Issues practice groups. She represents New Jersey Transit Corporation as well as State agencies, for which she is Outside Counsel to the NJ Attorney General’s Office for the acquisition of property by condemnation for various public projects. Ms. Lessne also represents private property owners whose properties are being taken by eminent domain by public entities for public projects.
Ms. Lessne has extensive trial and appellate practice, including but not limited to, condemnation, inverse condemnation, environmental cost recovery, environmental licensing and enforcement cases, defending challenges to State agency decisions. She also handles commercial and industrial tax appeals.
Ms. Lessne was a Deputy Attorney General in the NJ Attorney General’s Office for many years, during which she represented several State agencies, including the NJ Department of Transportation, NJ Department of Environmental Protection, New Jersey Transit Corporation, NJ Schools Development Authority and NJ Economic Development Authority. She also served as a Hearing Officer in the NJ Department of Transportation on employee disciplinary and grievance matters after retiring as a Deputy Attorney General.
Ms. Lessne is admitted to practice in New Jersey and New York and is licensed to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Court of Appeals, Third Circuit and the U.S. District Court, District of New Jersey. She attended Georgetown University Law Center and received her J.D. from Rutgers Law School – Newark. Ms. Lessne clerked for the Honorable Frederick C. Kentz, Jr. in the Superior Court, Hudson County, General Equity for two years while attending the Evening Division of Rutgers Law School – Newark. She is an honors graduate of the University of Maryland at College Park.
QUALIFICATIONS
Bar Admissions
- New Jersey
- New York
- U.S. District Court, District of New Jersey
- U.S. Supreme Court
- US Court of Appeals, Third Circuit
Education
- Georgetown Law Center (LLM)
- Rutgers University School of Law
- University of Maryland
PRACTICE AREAS
- Qualified Mediator on Roster of Court-Approved Mediators for Civil, General Equity & Probate Cases
- Eligible condemnation commissioner, NJ Superior Court, Law Division, Mercer County
- Member, NJ Professional Mediators Association
- Adjunct Professor, Monmouth University Dept. of Criminal Justice, Civil Rights & Civil Liberties Course, Spring, 2012
- Presenter, Redevelopment Law Seminar, Condemnation of Contaminated Properties, NJ Institute for Continuing Legal Education, (Jan. 2009)
- Lecturer at numerous professional seminars for attorneys as well as NJ Dept. of Transportation real estate acquisition and environmental seminars for in-house and private engineering and real estate professionals.
- Ms. Lessne was a member of the legal team that successfully represented the NJ Department of Environmental Protection against a challenge from several oceanfront property owners, from whom easements were taken by eminent domain for a storm mitigation project in Ocean County, State of NJ, by the Dept. of Environmental Protection v. North Beach 1003, LLC,451 N.J. Super. 214 (App. Div. 2017).
- Ms. Lessne was co-counsel representing the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and New Jersey Transit respectively in two landmark cases involving the condemnation of contaminated properties, Hous. Auth. of City of New Brunswick v. Suydam Investors, LLC, 177 N.J. 2, (2003) and NJ Transit Corp. v. Cat in the Hat, LLC, 353 N.J. Super. 364 (App. Div. 2002), aff'd 177 N.J. 29 (2003).
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