Maryland Lawyer 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.