Maryland Lawyer Blog

Slated to be the Maryland State Bar Association (MSBA) President for the 2013-2014 term, Michael J. Baxter of Baltimore's Baxter, Baker, Sidle, Conn & Jones has been named President-Elect nominee.

First having joined the bar in 1980, Michael J. Baxter is a trial attorney who primarily defends doctors and hospitals in medical malpractice cases. Over the past decade, Baxter has held many positions. He served on the Board of Governors from 2001-2003, chaired the Association Standing Committee on Laws from 2003-2009, and has been the MSBA Secretary since 2010.

It sounds as if he is looking forward to his term as President, stating that he knows he is going to get a lot out of it, and that he intends to make sure the Association keeps doing the good things it does.

Congratulations go out to him.

The Maryland Court of Special Appeals is looking for six lawyers to fill "at-will" attorney position.

Three thoughts:

• I think it is funny that it says that the positions is "at will." Most employees are at-will. I'm surprised they felt compelled to specify that. I'm sure it is a state government thing. But it is funny to me.
• Six positions? That just blows me away. I don't pretend to understand all of the inner workings of the Court of Special Appeals. But six more lawyers? How many are there now? The job is to assist the judges research and analyze cases. It strikes me because Governor O'Malley is now floating increase the sales tax again.
• The salary is $29.89 an hour without any benefits. I cannot imagine these are long term jobs held by seasoned lawyers. I wonder how much confidence these appellate judges really place on these lawyers. Admittedly, I don't know what I'm talking about but would it be better to hire four lawyers and pay them a lot more? Alternatively, they should just bring on 2 or 3 more judges.

• In case you missed the news before the New Year, two non-Maryland doctors have been charged with murder here under Maryland's fetal homicide law. The two abortion doctors, one from New Jersey and the other from Utah, were charged in connection with a late-term abortion in Elkton that went awry. It looks like this is the first time the fetal homicide law has been used against a medical professional performing surgery; previously, its been used in cases where a pregnant woman was attacked, causing the fetus to die.
• The Court of Appeals will hear Nancy Forster's argument that a Baltimore judge should not have dismissed the former public defender's wrongful termination claim.
• Curious which Maryland law stories were the most-read in 2011? Also, Baltimore Crime has a list of its top 10 local legal stories of the year.
• The General Assembly session is about to start. Get ready for a knock-down, drag-out fight over legalizing gay marriage.
• Frank Kratovil Jr. is gainfully employed again.
• Will a murder trial that opens tomorrow be a test of Maryland's new death penalty standards?

According to the Attorney Grievance Commission of Maryland (AGC), disciplinary actions taken against Maryland attorneys are down this year (Fiscal Year [FY] – July 1, 2010 through June 30, 2011), despite the fact that the AGC received slightly more complaints.

According to the AGC’s annual report, the overall number of inquiries rose for the second consecutive year, from 1,597 in FY 2010 to 1,800 in FY 2011, as did the number of docketed complaints filed against Maryland attorneys – increasing from 406 in 2010 to 429 in 2011. While this may sound discouraging, the 70 disciplinary actions that were taken this year was a decrease from the 76 that were taken in 2010 (FY). That’s encouraging, right? Even more encouraging, the number of disbarments fell from 15 in FY 2010 to 11 in 2011. Especially considering that the number of active attorneys increased from 34,506 last year to 35,515 this year.

The 76 reported disciplinary actions taken in FY 2011 are broken down as follows:

• 17 attributed to competent representation, diligence, communication, neglect, and abiding by client’s decision
• 12 to misconduct (dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation)
• 10 to criminal act or conviction
• 9 to misappropriation (theft of client’s funds, estate funds, fiduciary funds or law firm funds)
• 8 to failure to maintain complete records, account to clients or others, maintain trust account, or safeguard funds

As far as complaints received go, the largest numbers are broken down amongst the following practice areas:

• Civil Litigation – 74 complaints
• Personal Injury - 61
• Family Law – 49 (a considerable decrease from 71 the prior year)
• Criminal Law - 43
• Bankruptcy – 26 (while this may seem insignificant, this figure more than doubled from the 12 in 2010)

Geographically speaking, Montgomery County once again led the state in complaints with 81, though this was a big drop from 92 reported last year. The other notable numbers, broken down by county, are as follows:

• Prince George's County: 73 (an increase from 62 last year)
• Baltimore City: 65 (an increase from 60)
• Baltimore County: 57 (an increase from 50)
• Anne Arundel County: 34 (this more than double the amount of complaints received last year)

Counties having received no complaints are: Caroline County, Cecil County, Dorchester County, and Kent County.

• Under Armour sues Energy Armor, a company selling "negative ion bracelets" and other apparel, alleging copyright infringement. Really, negative ion bracelets? Who buys this stuff?
• The 4th Circuit, long considered the most conservative circuit in the country, has definitely shifted to the left. This can't be bad for those of us representing the injured.
• A blind man says that after he and his guide dog were hit by a car, Baltimore paramedics wanted to leave the dog behind on the pavement and wouldn't take the animal in the ambulance transporting the man to the hospital.
• Oops. While Frank Conaway Sr. allegedly "brandished" a gun at blogger Adam Meister yesterday (say police, but not Conaway or Meister), his concealed-carry permit expired months ago.
• Judge Roger Titus lets the racial gerrymandering case go forward. The group of black plaintiffs allege Gov. O'Malley and the legislature redistricted along racial lines in order to give Democrats an advantage.

The University of Baltimore Law School is considered to be one of the top values in law schools.

A new smartphone application is available, the first of its kind in the nation among state bar associations. Erek Barron, Chair of the Maryland State Bar Association (MSBA) Young Lawyers Section, has developed a new substantive app for “on-the-go” access to the Rules of Evidence, rules of Professional Conduct, MSBA’s website, and more. Versions are available for Applie IPHone and iPad, Android, and BlackBerry Smartphones.

Funded in part from a grant from the Maryland Bar Foundation, the MSBA application allows users to easily search for rules by chapter, title, or rule, and bookmark them for future reference. It even features links to select portions of the MSBA website, including the MSBA Ethics Hotline, Ethics Opinions, and Fastcase online legal research for members.

With the development of mobile applications growing by leaps and bounds, with hundreds of thousands to choose from, the MSBA app is getting great reviews. Attorneys from all over the nation have chimed in regarding the new app with comments such as, "a well-designed application that all Maryland attorneys should be proud of.

Is this cool? Yes. Do we really need an iPad app for this? Well, I don't know that it is right in the wheelhouse of the best use of apps. Still, I'll download it.

The Appellate Judicial Nominating Commission on Wednesday submitted to Governor O’Malley nine candidates for a vacancy on the Court of Special Appeals.

The candidates are:

• Andrew H. Baida
• Donald E. Beachley
• Stuart R. Berger
• Karen Louise Federman Henry
• Robert Neal McDonald
• Audrey J.S. Carrion
• Toni Evon Clarke
• Melanie Marva Shaw Geter
• Pamela Janice White

The Maryland Bar Exam July, 2011 results will be posted on-line next week on Friday, November 4, 2011 at 4:30 p.m. Did you Google this to find out how your ex-girlfriend did on the exam? Well, she passed. Get on with you life. Besides, the results will be posted by seat number. Just ask her the few Facebook friends you still have in common to let you know.

• Did you pass the exam? I give you my opinion.
• Pass/fails for Maryland's bar in February 2011 (remember, pass rate is always much higher in July)
• Maryland Bar Examiners Website
• Last July's Results
• More on the Bar Exam (from the New York Personal Injury Attorney Blog)

Next week is the American Bar Association's national Pro Bono Week. The Pro Bono and Access to Legal Services Committee of the Bar Association of Baltimore City (BABC), in conjunction with the Legal Aid Bureau, Inc. (Legal Aid), Legal Services for the Elderly, Maryland State Bar Association Young Lawyers Section, Maryland Volunteer Lawyers Service (MVLS), Pro Bono Resource Center (PBRC) and Young Lawyers' Division of the Bar Association of Baltimore City will once again host a Pro Bono Day clinic on Saturday, October 29th at Legal Aid's Baltimore City Office, 500 East Lexington Street, from 10 am to 2 pm.

The last Pro Bono Day, held in May, 2011, served well over 160 people with more than 190 legal issues. We look forward to an equally successful clinic on October 29th and your participation is encouraged and welcome. Specifically, attorneys are needed to provide brief one-on-one consultations with attendees on a variety of civil matters including housing law, government benefits, bankruptcy and consumer debt issues, wills, advance directives, elder law and divorce/custody/child support.

You can find more information here.

• Testimony continues in the federal corruption case against Ulysses Currie.
• Plaintiffs in a group of class-action lawsuits say UB is among the law schools that give out post-graduation employment numbers that are misleading because they do not specify how many students are working part-time or in totally non-law-related jobs.
• The Maryland lawyer involved in baby-selling has been disbarred by consent.
• In other Bar news, the Court of Appeals has voted to go against the recommendation of the Maryland Bar's character committee, admitting Richard J. Thorpe Jr. to the practice of law. Thorpe's offense appears to involve backdating a loan document as a title agent.
• SCOTUS has rejected cert in a Maryland case that gun-rights advocates were hoping to use to overturn part of the state's gun-permit law as a Second Amendment violation.
• The former state's attorney of Wicomico was arrested for allegedly violating a protective order.
• Five big stories in Maryland law last week, according to the Maryland Daily Record.

The Washington Post reports that freshman Prince George’s County state delegate Tiffany T. Alston indicted on theft charges amid allegations that she spent thousands of dollars of campaign contributions to pay for wedding expenses and for the salary of an employee in her law firm.

The indictment says that Delegate Alston wrote herself checks from the account of “Friends of Tiffany Alston” and then cashed the checks for personal use, including picking up the tab for this wedding. She is charge with one count of felony theft, one count of misdemeanor theft, one count of fraudulent misappropriation by a fiduciary and two election law violations.

Alston was last in the news when she sponsored a gay marriage bill and then voted against it. Somewhere, John Kerry and Mitt Romney nod approvingly.

She had a nice story going: her own law firm, a state delegate at age 33, and even the ultimate sign of status in America: her own Wikepedia page. She also had this great Washington City Paper puff piece talking about, ironically, her life as a philanthropist.

Crazy story.

Baltimore City's Lawyers Under Siege: Fairly?

• $30,000 for a broken wrist, $90,000 if it's the whole arm? Is Baltimore City taking a harder line on settlement negotiations in police misconduct cases?
• Maryland political corruption cases galore, coming to a courthouse near you.
• "The woman's emotional testimony was no laughing matter. But the underwear sticking out of her low-rise pants was well, a little distracting." HT: Maryland Family Law.
• Sen. Cardin has reintroduced legislation to prohibit racial profiling by law enforcement.
• A 20-year-old Maryland man will plead guilty to federal sexual exploitation charges for blackmailing teenage girls in several states into sending him sexually explicit material.

Not Something You Want Tossed at You

A Washington lawyer is accused of throwing a live power line at another motorist during a road-rage incident after Hurricane Irene. The attorney faces a variety of charges in Montgomery County, including first-degree assault and reckless endangerment.

It is a wild story: the guy allegedly tailgated/chased a car until they reached a downed power line, which had been blown into the road by Irene. Pinning him down, he threw the power line at his car while kicking it and trying to break into the poor guy's car.

It sounds like something transcendentally wacky happened here but the story does not make a ton of sense. Wouldn't you just pull away as opposed to lying in your car taking this abuse?

I tried to figure out what kind of lawyer this guy is and where he practiced. But there are so many stories online about this debacle that you can't find anything else on him. Anyway, here is one post on this crazy case.

Please note: I made up the Hurricane Irene segue.

• The first Hurricane Irene lawsuits have been filed in Maryland. (Again, people, I'm link baiting. There have not been any Hurricane Irene lawsuits filed in Maryland.)
• Who will replace the esteemed Judge Murphy on the state's highest court? That, plus some previews of upcoming cases coming before the court, in The Daily Record's preview of the new term.
• "A Baltimore City Circuit Court judge has allowed a negligence lawsuit against the state to proceed, despite defense objections that Maryland is not the proper defendant in the case."
• Never tell a judge he's "in over his head," and other advice from Paul Mark Sandler.
• To hold yourself out as a Maryland lawyer you must, uh, be an actual Maryland lawyer.
• A Maryland teenager is in "secret U.S. custody" for allegedly trying to help "Jihad Jane."

The Volokh Conspiracy has a blog post about what electives lawyers wish they had taken in law school.

My response: You didn't take evidence in law school? Seriously?

• There's been a conviction in the horrific Stephen Pitcairn stabbing murder. Reporters were camped out during my trial with a bank of microphones. After our verdict Wednesday, I stepped into the microphones and pretended to give a statement. Okay, you had to be there but it was funny.
• Starting your own practice: you're doing it wrong.
• Legalize medical marijuana, says The Sun.
• Should legendary Ocean City nightspot Seacrets be held liable under dram-shop law for a boating accident caused by someone who got drunk at the club? The boater and the plaintiff were actually ferried to the boater's vessel by Seacrets. My views are here.
• Law schools should set up law firms as training grounds for students, says a Maryland Law professor.
• "Is it wrong for an older attor­ney to use ethics as a weapon against younger attor­neys? If by that you mean to beat some­body with a bound Rules of Pro­fes­sional Respon­si­bilty, then yes. If you mean to increase aware­ness of the poten­tial pit­falls for a newly barred attor­ney going solo, then no."

• What will the discriminating defendant be wearing this fall?
• In other Snoop news, Above the Law notes that her plea to conspiracy to distribute heroin is not so much life imitating art as life imitating life.
• Paul Mark Sandler advocates limiting pre-trial discovery. I wish I could agree. It would save me a lot of money. But I can't.
• In case you missed this, a Maryland lawyer was involved in a weighs in on the robocall scandal.
• "Peninsula Regional Medical Center has agreed to pay $1.8 million to settle allegations that the hospital failed to act to prevent medically unnecessary cardiac stent procedures by a former cardiologist." These stent cases may be the next big thing.

The Rockville District Court Building is now open at its new location as of August 1, 2011:
191 East Jefferson Street Rockville, MD 20850.
.

Maybe this judge was following the law. But, boy, he was on the wrong side of history.