Articles Posted in Maryland Legal News

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The Maryland Daily Record has an article in its Maryland Lawyer section today underscoring what I think we already know: it is a tough legal market in 2009. This article focuses on the lack of associates making partner in Baltimore law firms.

Interesting, if you look at the numbers which the Daily Record provides with a cool chart, the number of people making partner has not gone down that dramatically. But what you don’t know is the number of these partners that are non-equity partners, which means you are an associate with the firm and you have been here a while, so we will call you partner, but you are not an actual shareholder in the firm. The non-equity partner trend has been huge over the last 10 years as big law firms join the rest of the world in running their business like a business. Of course, it also does not include the number of lawyers who made equity partner, but the firm is so under budget they would have made more as an associate.

Another thing in this article that really stood out to me: only ten lawyers in Piper DLA’s Baltimore office have made partner in the last four years. Over this same time period, the firm has added 237 partners to the firm. Yeah, Piper & Marbury came from Baltimore, but I guess Piper is long past its Maryland roots.

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The Maryland Daily Record reports that the Maryland Court of Appeals will hear a challenge to Maryland’s statutory cap on non-economic damages involving a lead paint case in Baltimore City.

I think it is interesting the Maryland high court granted cert in this case. I’m not optimistic. But boy would the landscape flip here if the Maryland Court of Appeals agrees these caps are unjust under Maryland’s Constitution.

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In December, I wrote about concerns that had been raised regarding Baltimore County Bruce S. Lamdin’s conduct on the bench. Today, the Maryland Court of Appeals suspended Judge Lamdin for 30 days.

The court’s opinion provides over a dozen comments for which Judge Lamdin was disciplined. The comments seem to fall in one of five categories:

(1) Disparaging children – Judge Lamdin said that he does not like children and does not want them in his courtroom. You cannot tell from the transcript whether he is serious, half-serious or kidding. I have three kids but I really don’t take offense to someone saying they don’t like kids. His loss, but I don’t find such remarks offensive. Maryland Lawyer Blog Score: Who cares?

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A new child car seat law, Maryland Senate Bill 789, passed at the end of the Maryland legislative session last night at 9:10 p.m. Children in Maryland will now be required to remain in car seats until their 8th birthday unless they are over 65 lbs or over 4 feet, 9 inches tall.

This is a good development for child safety in Maryland. We are now a long way from bouncing up and down in the back of our parents station wagon.

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The Maryland Daily Record had a quick blurb about a bill introduced by Maryland State Senator Nancy Jacobs, a Republican from Hartford County, exempting nursing mothers from jury duty. Senator Jacobs claims that she knows of many instances in her district where breast-feeding mothers were required to serve on juries.

Judges are quick to ignore a lot of excuses for serving on jury duty. But I don’t think I have ever been in front of a judge who I think would not excuse a breastfeeding mother.

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The Maryland Daily Record’s Blog reports that DLA Piper and Venable, the two Baltimore mega firms, have raised their associate starting salaries in Baltimore to $160,000.

I remember in 1995 when I was making $57,500 coming out of law school at a litigation defense firm in Baltimore that, at that time, was only a half notch below Piper and Venable in starting salary. Because other than being a law clerk, my next best paying job in life had been as a camp counselor making minimum wage, I thought I was a millionaire. (In a related story, I was still living at home.)

The Daily Record Blog asks if these young associates are worth 160K a year. The answer is clearly no. But three years from now, when they have quality experience and are billing out at $450 an hour while working approximately 28.7 hours a day, the answer becomes a resounding yes. It is not dissimilar to the Oakland Raiders signing JaMarcus Russell to a six-year, $68 million contract even when they did not think he would be an asset to them in the first year of his contract (they were right).

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The Maryland Lawyer section of the Daily Record yesterday ranks Maryland’s appellate judges by the number of opinions they wrote in 2007. I love data. But this is one of those things that appears interesting at first glance, particularly with the Daily Record’s glossy – okay not glossy, but color – two page, the center of the paper layout. But once you start reading, it is really not interesting at all.

But I found the total number of opinions generated by these two courts to be of some interest. The Maryland Court of Appeals published 154 opinions in 2007; the Maryland Court of Special Appeals wrote 1,245 opinions, of which 153 were reported. The courts produced a similar number of opinions the year before. I wish I had a count of how many of those opinions were personal injury cases.

One more thing I found of interest: of the 24 opinions Chief Judge Robert M. Bell wrote for the court, six involved attorney grievance opinions. I realize these cases are important because the career of a lawyer hangs in the balance. But this means 25% of Maryland’s highest judge’s opinions involve attorney grievances that are of little consequence to the citizen of Maryland. This is the highest percentage of any Maryland Court of Appeals judge. I’d rather have Chief Judge Bell writing opinions that impact the lives of more Marylanders. (After I wrote this, I realized they probably did not include dissenting opinions. I think Chief Judge Bell has more than his fair share of those.)

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Honorable J. Michael Wachs has been appointed to fill the Anne Arundel Circuit Court vacancy resulting from the retirement of the Honorable Joseph P. Manck.

I have only been in front of Judge Wachs once but he has a great judicial temperament and is very well thought of in Anne Arundel County. He should be a great addition to the Anne Arundel County Circuit Court bench.