Maryland Lawyer Blog

The Maryland Intellectual Property Law Blog reports that Marylanders seeking patents have increased by 1%. Let's just hope we are getting 1% smarter.

This is a funny blog post from Above the Law.

Speaking of funny lawyer blogs, have you even seen Anonymous Lawyer? I'm not a huge fan of recent posts. I think the author, Jeremy Blachman, had his heart in it when he was in law school. He quit for over a year and didn't exactly come back to it with the same edge. But he's obviously a talented writer and the archives are hysterical.

Raise your hand if you are surprised it came to this: the National Conference of Bar Examiners had to subpoena Earthlink for the anonymous person who published 41 questions - and some answers - from the Multistate Bar Examination on an Internet blog within hours of taking the exam.

Hopefully, this year's Maryland bar exam goes smoothly. Either way, it will be done for all in less than 30 hours.

More campaign financing criminal law problems: a grand jury has indicted developer and H&S Bakery owner Jon Paterakis and reindicted Baltimore City Councilwoman Helen Holton on charges of violating campaign finance laws.

The Baltimore Sun story is here.

A Columbia couple has filed a lawsuit against Howard County and three of its police officers, seeking damages after a police raid that resulted in injuries to them and the death of their dog.

You can read the Maryland Daily Record article here.

The Senate Judiciary Committee just approved by a 16-3 vote Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to U.S. Supreme Court, setting up confirmation vote by the full U.S. Senate.

This is beyond a done deal. You can read the CNN article here.

John Cord's Drug Recall Lawyer Blog reports that Plaintiffs in 23 Yasmin/Yaz birth control lawsuits filed a motion with the Judicial Panel on MultiDistrict Litigation requesting consolidation and/or coordination of 32 and counting federal Yasmin/Yaz lawsuits.

The Maryland Daily Record reports that Baltimore County Councilman (Randallstown) Kenneth N. Oliver plead guilty of two counts of campaign finance violations. Essentially, Oliver plead guilty to taking money out of his campaign for his own personal use. Oliver was sentenced to six months’ probation and is required to pay a $2,500 fine and performing 50 hours of community service.

Another Maryland Daily Record report: Strickler, Sachitano & Hatfield P.A, a Bethesda,Maryland family law firm with 10 lawyers, has disbanded, with one group of lawyers heading to Shulman, Rogers, Gandal, Pordy & Ecker P.A. and another starting its own firm.

Shulman Rogers, a 94-lawyer Rockville firm, approached Strickler, Sachitano & Hatfield as a firm last December about a merger, making offers to all of the Strickler, Sachitano & Hatfield. But, accordingly, to the article, it did not work out and the firm slowly fell part.

The economy? Who knows? Everyone suspects the economy in this legal climate. But law firms have been merging and breaking up for hundreds of years, in good economies and in bad economies.

The Maryland Lawyer section of the Maryland Daily Record has an article on lawyers' bills not getting paid during a recession.

I don't think the recession has been much of an issue for lawyers who are suing insurance companies or lawyers who are getting paid by insurance companies. But it does seem to be impacting just about everyone else.

I think history will show that this is the point at which the Maryland legal economy began to turn around. Of course, I have no idea what I'm talking about.

I am still to this day amazed looking up at my class and seeing virtually every student with a laptop. Many are either taking copious notes of everything I'm saying or writing one heck of a email or text message to a friend. (To tell the difference, just call on them. The reactions are very different.)

Anyway, this is a blog post about the Kindle and law school textbooks and the fear that the Kindle might hurt the quality of law school textbook in the long run of history. I have no idea if it will but I found the question interesting.

• Kindle and Law School Casebooks (the Bizhop News)
• Which Kindle to Buy? (this is one of many articles that have delayed my Kindle purchase - I can't figure out which one to buy)
• PLI Puts Law School Textbooks on Kindle

Getting ready to take the July 2009 Maryland bar exam in a few days? Great! But why are you surfing for information on the bar exam? Probably because anything that you are doing for the first time that is important makes you unnecessarily nervous. Just means you are a human being.

Anyway, you can find on Above the Law reader tips as to what to do in these last days. But just relax, okay? It is all going to be good.

• Maryland Bar Exam Results July 2009 (results on the way)
• Last July's Results

A woman has filed a lawsuit in Nevada alleging that Ben Roethlisberger raped her in a hotel penthouse a year ago. Roethlisberger denies the claim.

Everything about the story sucks. Because while there is some narrow middle ground, one of two things likely happened here: (1) Roethlisberger assaulted this woman, which means he is an awful human being, or (2) this woman is completely lying because she is insane or trying to make a buck by suing someone with fame and fortune. If it is the latter, notwithstanding the American public’s willingness to forget horrendous allegations (see Bryant, Kobe and Jackson, Michael, for examples), Roethlisberger will always have a taint on him.

"If an investigation is commenced, Ben will cooperate fully and Ben will be fully exonerated," Roethlisberger’s lawyer David Cornwell said in a statement. But the most likely outcome is dropped charges after a civil resolution or an acquittal (the burden of proof is really tough on he said/she said). So unless Cromwell has a Perry Mason moment, we will never really know which of the two that it is.

So, cutting to the end of the story, Roethlisberger will get 95% of his reputation back, which means there is either a 95% or a 5% complete injustice.

Leo Hylan has a series of blog posts about an issue I had not heard about. Apparently, Verizon put the names of 12,500 people in Washington County, Maryland who had unlisted numbers in their most recent yellow pages. These people actually paid to have their number unlisted. (Did you know that you have to pay to have your number unlisted? I had no idea?)

Our lawyers are not handling these cases (we only handle personal injury claims) but I think Leo may be. You can find his information at the bottom of this blog post.

The Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog has a post on the new Maryland Court of Special Appeals opinion on the applicability of the cap after a $2.3 million verdict in lead paint case.

From the Baltimore Sun:

DOHERTY , Monica C. Towson attorney Monica C. Doherty passed away suddenly in Florida on July 1, 2009. Ms. Doherty was born in Virginia Beach, Virginia and graduated from the University of Florida. Beginning in 1999, she taught for three years at the public school in Roland Park. She graduated from the University of Baltimore Law School in 2005 and was engaged in private practice when she died. She is survived by her husband David B. Nelson, her mother Mary Ann Popper, father Kevin Doherty, brothers Patrick, Kevin and David and sisters Meghan and Ilicia, along with many other caring relatives and friends. A memorial service will be held on Saturday July 18 at 2:00 P.M. at the Church of Christ, 530 West University Parkway. In lieu of flowers donations may be made to: The Women's Law Center of Maryland, 305 West Chesapeake Avenue, Suite 201 Towson, MD 21204.

Monica was a student of mine at the University of Baltimore School of Law about 5 years ago. She was a good student and an extremely pleasant and likable woman. I stayed in touch with her more than most students. I have not had contact with her in few years but I followed her Facebook. Her death is just an absolutely tragedy.

Karen J. Williams, the chief judge of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, has resigned, according to Washington Post. Unfortunately, it sounds like Judge Williams is resigning due to an illness. Let's hope and pray that she recovers from whatever is ailing her.

President Obama gets a chance to make another step to remake the conservative 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. Judge Williams' retirement opens up another seat on 15-judge court, which now has five vacancies. Judge Andre Davis, another one of Obama's nominees, is waiting for expected Senate confirmation. The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 16-3 in support of Davis.

Incisive Legal Intelligence released its 2009 Billing Rates and Practices Survey Report today giving interesting data on average lawyer billing rates:

The average hourly billing rate reported was $284. Nationally, plaintiffs' contingency litigation is the practice area with the highest average hourly billing rate ($413), followed by labor/employment ($302), general law ($295) and real estate/land use ($294). The billing rate survey data represents a sample of more than 14,000 lawyers throughout the 50 United States, drawn from responses from 255 law firms.

If I had to guess the average billing rate for attorneys nationally, this is pretty close to what I would have predicted. It would be interesting to see how much of that $284 dollars got collected in 2007 versus 2009.

If you want to buy the full report, it is available for $550. Are you kidding me? I think I've told you enough.

Above the Law reports today that 125 major law firms have announced or had confirmed layoffs. The combined number of layoffs 10,723 people, 4,015 of which are lawyers.

It would be great if the Maryland Daily Record tried to put something together for Maryland, not just for big law firms but for the entire state of Maryland. I'm not sure how you find this information but, hey, I'm not a reporter. My guess: Maryland lawyers have not been as severely impacted as the rest of the country.