Members

The attorneys at Sammis Law Firm represent clients accused of DUI and other criminal defenses throughout the greater Tampa Bay area. The firm has three locations. The main office is in downtown Tampa, FL. They also have offices in Clearwater and New Port Richey. Leslie M. Sammis is an attorney at Sammis Law Firm in Tampa, FL. Her practice is limited to defending clients in criminal, DUI, and civil asset forfeiture cases. She co-founded the firm with her husband, Jason Sammis, in 2008. Over the past fifteen years, the firm has grown to six attorneys, four paralegals, an intake coordinator, and an office manager. As a lifetime member of the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL), Ms. Sammis enjoys networking with other attorneys fighting similar battles in the courtroom. She was recently selected as Florida’s State Delegate for the National College of DUI Defense (NCDD). On May 4, 2023, she presented the “Case Law Update: Knowledge is Power” at the “Masters of DUI 2023: Top Gun Teaching for Cutting-Edge Advocacy,” a comprehensive, cutting-edge look at the prosecution and defense of alcohol- and drug-related vehicular offenses. The Criminal Law Section of the Florida Bar sponsored the event. Leslie Sammis is admitted to practice law in the State of Florida and Georgia, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, and the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida.

Since high school, Ms. Sammis knew she wanted to be in the courtroom conducting jury trials. From 1989 to 1991, she competed in the National Law Explorer Mock Trial Competition, sponsored by the ABA. Over those three years, her team won first place in the national mock trial competition in Honolulu, Boulder, and Atlanta. She completed her first year of law school at Stetson University College of Law in St. Petersburg, Florida. That year, she was the only first-year student on Stetson’s Trial Team. She competed in the 1997 National Association of Trial Lawyers (ATLA) Competition in Denver, where her team placed second overall. After her first year of law school, Ms. Sammis transferred to the University of Florida (UF) College of Law in Gainesville, Florida, where she graduated with Honors in 1999. While at UF College of Law, Ms. Sammis competed in several moot court competitions and served on the Executive Board of the UF Justice Campbell Thornal Moot Court Board as the Vice-Chair of Public Relations. Gaining valuable insight into the criminal justice process, Ms. Sammis completed the following internships: - the State Attorney’s Office prosecuting felony-level offenses alongside prosecutors in circuit court; - the United States Attorney’s Office in Tampa, working alongside federal prosecutors; and - the Honorable Henry Lee Adams, Jr., United States District Judge, for the Middle District of Florida, Tampa Division. Her passion for trial advocacy led her to the Public Defender’s Office for the Fourth Judicial Circuit of Florida, where she gained valuable jury trial experience while representing individuals in misdemeanor, juvenile, and felony divisions. After more than two years as an Assistant Public Defender, she entered private practice. She worked for five years as an associate attorney at Head, Thomas, Webb, and Willis, a criminal and DUI defense law firm in Atlanta, GA. After returning to Tampa, she worked for two years at Escobar, Ramirez & Associates, P.A., focusing exclusively on criminal defense. In 2008, she and her husband, Jason Sammis, founded the Sammis Law Firm.