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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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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.

Ralph has never turned down an invitation to speak at my insurance law class, and he just seems like a good guy. I have disagreed with some of the decisions that have come from his office, but I think losing him is a blow to the Maryland Insurance Administration both from the perspective of insurance companies and consumers/injury victims. This is probably the best compliment you can give an insurance commissioner.

This feels like an episode of Oz. I think Adebisi was involved.

On any listserv there is invariably bickering over what is appropriate on the listserv. What follows an arguably inappropriate post is scores of emails offering opinions, jokes and the rules of the listserv. It is as inevitable as death, taxes, and more Tiger Woods bimbos coming forward.

Above the Law has a great post on University of Maryland law students dealing with the problem of unnecessary listserv posts.