Maryland Lawyer Blog

Announced closings as of 6:00 a.m:

Anne Arundel County Circuit Court closed
Anne Arundel County District Court closed
Baltimore City Circuit Court closed
Baltimore City District Court closed
Baltimore County District Court closed
Calvert County Circuit Court closed
Calvert County District Court closed
Carroll County District Court closed
Charles County Circuit Court and Clerk's Office closed
Charles County District Court closed
Harford County Circuit Court closed
Harford County District Court closed
Howard County Circuit Court closed
Howard County District Court closed
Montgomery County Circuit closed
Montgomery County District Court closed
Prince George's County Circuit Court closed
Prince George's County District Court closed

The Maryland Daily Record reports that Maryland judges will forgo pay raises for the second straight year.

What do Maryland judges make? Maryland Court of Appeals Chief Judge Robert M. Bell earns $181,352 a year while other Court of Appeals judges make $162,352. Court of Special Appeals Chief Judge Peter B. Krauser is paid $152,552, while other judges on the CSA earn $149,552. Maryland Circuit Court judges are paid $140,352. State District Court judges are paid $127,252 although top District Court Judge Ben C. Clyburn earns $149,552.

Today's heroes: (1) Maryland Court of Appeals, (2) Maryland Court of Special Appeals, (3) Allegany County District Court (open at 12 noon), Carroll County Circuit Court and Juvenile Court (open at 10). - opening at 10 a.m. Every other Maryland court is closed!

From the Wall Street Journal Law Blog:

The night of Bush v. Gore, Scalia called to see if Ginsburg was alright. She wasn’t. But the fact that he cared enough to call her demonstrates unseen inner workings of those who make up the highest court.

If a case goes to the Supreme Court, you can assume that reasonable minds can differ on what the outcome should be. In this case, if you want to predict how I would vote, pick however you think Justice Scalia would vote. And then put me down for the opposite. But some of the people I like the most have different political views than I do. So it is very cool to think there is real camaraderie like this on the Supreme Court between the two political extremes.

The Maryland Daily Record reports that MICPEL - long a leader in Maryland legal education - would cease operations at the end of February due to financial troubles.

John Cord writes about this on the Daily Record's Generation J.D. Blog.

The Maryland Daily Record has an article on a battle between Silverman|Slutkin|Thompson|White and SuperMedia, formerly Idearc, which was formerly Verizon, which was formerly [fill in joke here]. (I had a great joke but decided it was a little over-the-top.)

Most certainly, lawsuits are a common mating ritual between lawyers and yellow page advertisers. Anyway, the battle is over the back page of the Yellow Book. Silverman Slutkin sued SuperMedia claiming they welshed on the deal to give them the back cover that Steven L. Snyder had.

SuperMedia's argument was apparently the ole tried and true: "So what if I breached my contract; the fine print says that you don't get any real damages in the event we breach." Which I'm sure is what the contract says. How much this article costs SuperMedia in terms of goodwill is anyone's guess. Of course, SuperMedia will probably just change its name again tomorrow. So it is probably all good.

When we founded Miller & Zois, I assumed that the yellow pages/phonebook was the path for personal injury lawyers to build a law practice. We began advertising for auto accident and medical malpractice cases, spending money we really did not have at the time. It was just foolish. Today, our yellow page/phonebook marketing is about 3% of what it once was, just covering the back of a little local book. I just don't think it works consistently in attracting the serious injury cases you need to fuel a personal injury practice.

Silverman Slutkin are good lawyers who know how to market their law practice. They don't need any advice from me as to how to spend their money. But I still think they won by losing in this case.

Everyone should take jury duty seriously and there should be no exceptions. Rudy Giuliani served on a jury in 1999 while he was mayor. John Kerry was the foreman in a personal injury trial after his lost to President Bush in 2005. Good for them.

A few weeks ago, President Obama received a summons from the Cook County in his home state of Illinois. President Obama notified the court he had more important things to do.

Well. The President is too important for jury duty? Does he think he is above the law? Incredibly, this is President Obama's quote, "I have better things to do than serve on a jury. Do you have any idea who I am? I'm the President of the United States. Please."

Of course, I made up that quote and I'm kidding. As important a jury service is, some perspective is necessary. We have invested billions of dollars into President Obama. His de facto "hourly rate" would be in the millions. As important as jury service is, I'm glad the President took a pass. Let's get our civics lesson elsewhere at let the President do what we pay him to do: be the president.

The Maryland Daily Record reports today that an “extremely remorseful” circuit judge in Charles County would accept a public reprimand for deflating the tire of a woman improperly parked in a restricted area of the Charles County Courthouse, according to documents filed by his attorney with the Maryland Commission on Judicial Disabilities. The judge pleaded guilty last October to vehicle tampering, a misdemeanor. The judge paid a $500 fine and was ordered by Judge Robert C. Wilcox to 'write a heartfelt letter of apology” to the tire deflatee.

At this point, it seems like we are burning unnecessary tax dollars on further proceedings. The judge was throughly embarrassed and either (1) feels legitimate remorse and realizes he did the wrong thing or, (2) feels in his heart he did nothing wrong and that woman had it coming (which is obviously how he felt in the long moment that he had to make the decision). But, either way, and we will never know which, no one is suggesting is is a removable offense. And he has already paid the price of national publicity. So let's hope it is the former and move on.

The Maryland Daily Record reports today that the little guy might get over on the man. Tens of thousands of Maryland debt-collection lawsuits may be dismissed because the collections firm that brought the claims, Mann Bracken LLP, is going under. The firm, which had office around the country, had an office here in Rockville. If these cases are dismissed, the firm faces a creditors legal malpractice action. I wonder if they have coverage.

I would think Maryland District Court judges everywhere are cracking champagne. These cases must be incredibly boring and time consuming.

I was amazed that there is actually a blog that is tracking the fall of this law firm. Can you imagine? I guess personal injury lawyers are beloved compared to collection lawyers. You can find this blog for yourself here.

I'm a big fan of the little guy but I cannot exactly rejoice when there are no consequences for not paying your bills.

John Bratt blogs about his argument yesterday before the Maryland Court of Appeals. The issue presented is one of particular interest to our law firm: how to make sure we can properly get before a jury how much money the defendants' experts are being paid for their expert testimony, particularly "frequent flyer" experts who regularly testify as expert witnesses.

I watched the oral arguments by webcast yesterday. The court seemed genuinely interested in trying to fashion the best rule that carefully balances the interests of all of the parties involved.

Related Posts:

The Maryland Court of Special Appeals affirmed a $1.68 million asbestos award last week. The Plaintiff was exposed to asbestos at a paper mill which lead to mesothelioma and carcinoma. Thankfully, and against the odds, the Plaintiff is still alive although his tumors do cause him pain, they are not growing.

The case involves interesting twists on the usual asbestos issues of bankruptcy and cross claims.
According to the Maryland Daily Record, the Plaintiff's lawyer was Michael T. Edmonds of the Law Offices of Peter T. Nicholl. The defendants were represented by David J. Shuster of Kramon & Graham P.A., and Susan E. Smith of Crosswhite, Limbrick & Sinclair LLP.

You can read the court's opinion in this Baltimore asbestos case here.

The Maryland Daily Record looks at the top 10 verdicts in Maryland in 2009.