DeLawrence Beard

DeLawrence Beard, currently serves (since appointment in 1996) as Chief Judge for the Sixth Judicial Circuit Court in Montgomery County, Maryland, the highest common law and equity court of record exercising original jurisdiction.

His retirement part was planned for January 17, 2008 at the Marriott Bethesda North Conference Center, Bethesda, Maryland.

Judge Beard was born Okalona, Arkansas, on December 26, 1937.

After receiving an Honorable Discharge from the United States Navy in 1959, he earned a B.A. in political science University of Missouri 1964.

After attending the University of Baltimore School of Law 1967-1970, earning a J.D, he graduated from the Georgetown University Law Center with an LL.M in 1977

Beard and his wife Lillian, a pediatrician and author, live in Potomac, Maryland

Judge Beard had approved a petition by a gay man to adopt his same-sex partner of 32 years in order to establish a legal family relationship, mainly for purposes of inheritance and being able to make legally enforceable decisions about each other's medical care. The attorney for the two men, who wished to remain anonymous, stated that they were a middle-aged couple, and that the younger man had adopted the older one, whose parents are deceased and thus could not object.

The order approving the adoption requires that a new birth certificate be issued to the older man, listing the younger man as his parent.