Features 2022 – University of Baltimore School of Law Magazine

Elizabeth Strunk, JD ’20, Takes Lawyering To the High Seas She Has Always Loved

Posted on September 27, 2023September 10, 2024 by Juan Soto in Features 2022, Features 2023

By Adam Stone

Some are called to the sea. For Elizabeth Strunk, J.D. ’20, that has meant serving first as a sailor on ocean-going tugboats, and now as a lawyer in the maritime industry.

“I was in high school fiddling with the possibility of marine biology, but I knew that I would be looking at getting a master’s and maybe a doctorate before I could do anything with that kind of degree,” she says. “I just wanted to be out on the water.”

Seeking a more practical education, Strunk attended Massachusetts Maritime Academy, where she earned a B.S. in Marine Transportation. Then she sailed for five years as a deck officer aboard ocean-going tugboats and cargo ships.

Sometimes she’d help to tow decommissioned Navy vessels and submarines back to the yard. Other times she would help to hold the boat at anchor for weeks at a time, while Navy divers trained for deep-sea diving. It was good work, but eventually she wanted a change.

“There were a couple of years where I was out of the country for 10 months out of the year, which is great, but at some point you’ve missed enough birthdays,” she says. “Time kind of goes by, and you feel like having a little more of a balance.”

To that end, she returned to land and earned her J.D. cum laude in 2020 from UBalt Law, where she was editor-in-chief of the Law Review. Today she practices maritime law at Liskow law firm in Houston.

“Generally, maritime law is anything that involves a boat,” she says. That means litigating collisions and spills, for example, and also working with owners’ insurance programs. “On commercial vessels, everything is insured,” Strunk says. “The hull and the machinery have separate insurance, cargo will be insured separately. And then the vessel owners also carry protection and indemnity insurance.”

Most of that P&I coverage comes through mutual insurers, where members bond together to self-insure in groups or clubs. “In every major port, you need a local correspondent, and we do that for a couple of the 12 major clubs in the world,” she says. “If something goes wrong, we get a call.”

Strunk says there are some unique limitations to liability that make maritime law an especially interesting field.

A few years back, for example, the diving boat Conception caught fire and sank off the California coast; over 30 passengers died. “If it had been a bus or something on the road, they could have been liable for millions and millions of dollars,” says Strunk. But commercial owners can limit their liability to the value of the vessel itself at the end of the voyage.

“Technically, at the end of the voyage — once the vessel sank — it really wasn’t worth anything,” she says. That limitation doesn’t sit well with some people, but as Strunk points out, it helps protect the U.S. shipping industry from potential overexposure.

Strunk says her UBalt experience helps her to navigate these sometimes-tricky waters. “There are professors at the school who genuinely value your success, and your ambitions, and your dreams,” she said. “They’ll support you along and help you to get to where you want to go.”

Adam Stone is a writer based in Annapolis.

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Ray Hoy, JD ’86, Retires from Presidency at Wor-Wic Community College

Posted on September 25, 2023September 10, 2024 by Juan Soto in Features 2022

By Matthew Liptak

Ray Hoy, J.D. ’86, is surrounded by books and paper, many of them of a legal nature, and sitting at his desk. The UBalt Law alumnus is well-dressed, educated with four advanced degrees, and still full of passion for his job as president of Wor-Wic Community College in Salisbury, MD. After 23 years in this position, at age 69, he retired last spring as the longest-serving college president in Maryland.

“On my law school application, where they said, ‘Why do you want to come to law school,’ I wrote, ‘To become a college president,’” says Hoy.

Hoy’s long academic journey began at Chesapeake College, a two-year community college in Wye Mills, on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. After earning an associate’s degree there, he worked his way through administrative positions for over two decades, before moving to Wor-Wic to become president, earning several additional degrees along the way.

By observing Chesapeake presidents for years, he was able to learn what skills were needed to meet the challenges of that position. “I realized how many of them were vested in legal issues,” Hoy says.

His UBalt Law education helped him save the college an untold amount of time and money, he says. Over his career he also has helped overcome legislative obstacles, not only for Wor-Wic, but for the entire community college system in Maryland.

In 1992, as a Chesapeake College vice president, he drafted legislative proposals that would allow community colleges to borrow, instead of purchase, equipment.

“Community colleges didn’t have the authority to borrow, and that meant we didn’t have the authority to lease,” he says. “That made no sense, because leasing became the in-thing with printers and copiers because the technology was changing so rapidly you didn’t want to keep things forever.”

He got together and lobbied with community college business officers across the state. Previously that authority was vested with the counties, not the colleges themselves, he says. The legislation passed.

Making education more accessible

Hoy was instrumental in efforts to make community college free on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, including establishing the Wicomico Economic Impact Scholarship and the Somerset Economic Impact Scholarship, both precursors to the state of Maryland’s Community College Promise Scholarship. 

The scholarship campaign was a personal passion, he says. He wanted to make aid available to part-time students as well as full-time students. “So many of our students are parents,“ Hoy says. “They’re working adults. They can’t give up their full-time job to go to school full-time.”

His law degree also helped him in day-to-day management of Wor-Wic, Hoy says. His legal knowledge let him address a growing number of Title IX and EEOC concerns and complaints, as well as Clery Act and Time to Care Act issues.

“Every year there’s something new,” he says. “I can read, interpret, and discuss with staff – I have really talented staff. It saves the institution a lot of time and a lot of money. Not just for legal services, but because we don’t make mistakes when we’re dealing with a lot of these things.”

He knows the positive impact the higher education mission can have because he experienced it firsthand. In the beginning of 2023, Hoy experienced a health scare. The medical personnel who responded to him were mostly Wor-Wic alumni, he recalls: paramedics, nurses and radiology technicians.

“I’m running into Wor-Wic alumni and I’m thinking — but for our institution, where would this community be?” he says. “That is the most important thing that I’ve had a small role in.”

Hoy by the Numbers

He has five degrees:

bachelor’s degree from Washington College
master’s in higher education administration from Johns Hopkins University
master’s in business management and supervision from Central Michigan University
juris doctorate from the University of Baltimore School of Law
doctorate in innovation and leadership from Wilmington University

Six buildings were added during his tenure:

Guerrieri Hall, housing the Eastern Shore Criminal Justice Academy;
Hazel Center, with food service operations and student services;
Jordan Center, with child care services;
Fulton-Owen Hall, a workforce development center;
Shockley Hall, an allied health building;
Patricia and Alan Guerrieri Technology Center, which adds 50,000 square feet of technology classrooms, industrial laboratories and more.

He oversaw enrollment growth and a 132 percent increase in the number of graduates.

The college has become an economic force in the community under Hoy, with Wor-Wic making a $106.6 million economic impact and supporting 425 full- and part-time employees.

The college’s Foundation resources have grown from $1.9 million to over $33 million.

Matthew Liptak writes from Severna Park, Md.

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Johnson Receives Fulbright Scholar Award to Study Menstrual Justice in Australia

Posted on November 11, 2022September 10, 2024 by Juan Soto in Features 2022

Prof. Margaret E. Johnson has received a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program award in Law for the 2022-2023 academic year from the U.S. Department of State and the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.

Johnson will conduct research at The University of Technology Sydney in Australia for her Fulbright project, “Comparative Menstrual Justice in Australia and the United States.” This project builds on Johnson’s work on menstruation and gender equity and has two objectives. The first is to understand how Australian and U.S. law and policy address, or fail to address, the needs of persons who menstruate (menstruators). The second is to use the Australian and U.S. law and policy comparison to explore two theoretical framings:

Whether, and, if so, how law can promote social change, including “menstrual justice” reforms that reduce and remedy menstruation-related harms or enhance menstruators’ quality of life;
How the law’s treatment of menstruation informs law’s relationship with the reproductive system and the body.

“The University of Baltimore School of Law is very proud that our colleague Margaret Johnson has received a Fulbright award,” says Baltimore Law Dean Ronald Weich.

“As associate dean for experiential education and as co-director of our Center on Applied Feminism, Prof. Johnson has been a leader in advancing the mission of our law school. The Fulbright will enable her to bring an international perspective to her path-breaking scholarship on menstrual justice and gender equity.”

Johnson is one of more than 800 U.S. citizens who will conduct research and/or teach abroad for the 2022-2023 academic year through the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program. Fulbright scholars engage in cutting-edge research and expand their professional networks, often continuing research collaborations started abroad and laying the groundwork for forging future partnerships between institutions.

Upon returning to their home countries, institutions, labs, and classrooms, they share their stories and often become active supporters of international exchange, inviting foreign scholars to campus and encouraging colleagues and students to go abroad. As Fulbright Scholar alumni, their careers are enriched by joining a network of thousands of esteemed scholars, many of whom are leaders in their fields. Fulbright alumni include 61 Nobel Prize laureates, 88 Pulitzer Prize recipients, and 40 who have served as a head of state or government.

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Suter, Innocence Project Clinic Director, Gains Exoneration for Adnan Syed

Posted on November 11, 2022September 10, 2024 by Juan Soto in Features, Features 2022

After serving 23 years in prison for a crime he did not commit, Adnan Syed’s conviction was vacated in September by a Baltimore City Circuit Court judge. Several weeks later, prosecutors dismissed the charges against Syed when DNA testing previously ordered by the Court excluded Syed. 

Syed, who has consistently maintained his innocence, became famous when the podcast “Serial” documented his case, resulting in numerous subsequent books and documentaries. He was ultimately exonerated after years of investigation and advocacy by his attorney, Erica J. Suter, director of the law school’s Innocence Project Clinic and a lawyer with the Maryland Office of the Public Defender.

Syed was 17 when he was tried and convicted in 2000 of first-degree murder, robbery, kidnapping and false imprisonment in the slaying of Hae Min Lee, his former girlfriend and Woodlawn High School classmate. Questions about whether he had received a fair trial drew widespread attention when “Serial” debuted in 2014. The podcast became a pop-culture sensation with its detailed examination over a dozen episodes of the case against Syed, including questions about the effectiveness of his attorney, who was disbarred amid complaints of wrongdoing in 2001.

An appeals court vacated Syed’s conviction in 2018, ruling that he had received ineffective legal counsel, but Maryland’s highest court reversed that decision in 2019.

Suter began representing Syed last year and brought the case to the Baltimore State’s Attorney’s Office after Maryland adopted a law that allowed people convicted of crimes as juveniles to request sentence modifications after serving 20 years in prison.

As the request was being considered, additional evidence emerged, prompting prosecutors to conduct a more in-depth investigation, the prosecutor’s office said. As a result of that investigation, Becky Feldman, J.D. ’02, chief of the state’s attorney’s Sentencing Review Unit, told Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Melissa M. Phinn “the state no longer has confidence in the integrity of the conviction.”

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On the Rocks with Jeremy, Kurt and Adam

Posted on November 11, 2022September 10, 2024 by Juan Soto in Features, Features 2022

By Hope Keller

The three lawyers behind the Lawyers on the Rocks podcast are on the front lines of the justice system in Baltimore.

“We are in the trenches – in the courthouses, in the jails,” says Adam Crandell, an immigration lawyer with Eldridge, Nachtman & Crandell LLC.

Crandell and his partners, Jeremy Eldridge, J.D. ’06, and Kurt Nachtman, J.D. ’06, want you to see the world through their eyes, and through the eyes of their colleagues and clients.

“We give an opportunity (for listeners) to hear what it’s really like in the trenches, compared to what their perception might be from the movies,” says Nachtman, who practices personal injury law.

Since mid-2018, the three have produced nearly 140 podcast episodes, each featuring a cocktail created by firm associate Clarissa Lindsey, J.D. ’19, cocktail curator, and proprietor of the Drink Link.

Local legal luminaries are frequent guests. Criminal defense attorney Warren A. Brown came by Eldridge, Nachtman & Crandell’s office/recording studio to sip Johnny Walker Blue Label in November (former Baltimore State’s Attorney Gregg Bernstein enjoyed the same beverage a year earlier). Public defender Natalie Finegar had a blueberry mojito mocktail, while Erik Atas, J.D. ’06, now a Baltimore Circuit Court judge, stopped in for a bourbon iced tea. Radio personality and congressional candidate, attorney Yuripzy Morgan, sat down for a chat and a Bombay Sapphire martini.

“Part of what we do is try to get ‘real’ lawyers who are more experienced than us in specific areas to really dive in, to give people a better idea of what the law really is,” says Eldridge, who practices criminal defense law. He also hosts a weekly talk show on WBAL Radio.

Plenty of non-lawyers also stop by for a drink and a discussion of life and the law, including former felon Bruce White, now CEO of One Promise Counseling and DUI Education in Baltimore (Cooper’s Cask Coffee).

White’s story was so compelling he was asked back for an encore episode.

Asked if he thought he’d been done wrong by the justice system, which imprisoned him for 12 years, White says: “I have a hard time saying the prison system or the court system failed me. I got exactly what I deserved.”

Today the former self-described “apex predator” helps people get and stay clean. “The job is to love them,” says White, now a certified addictions counselor.

Nachtman said producing the show on top of the day job can add up to a lot of work.

“Maintaining our ability to run a law firm and to be diligent and organized, and running a podcast with quality guests, is sometimes an adventure,” he says. “It’s not the easiest task, but we have a really good time.”

Lawyers on the Rocks is recorded most Fridays at 4 p.m. at Eldridge, Nachtman & Crandell’s North Charles Street offices. The podcast is archived at Lawyers on the Rocks, and the lawyers post news about the show on Instagram and LinkedIn.

Hope Keller is a writer based in Connecticut.

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Posted on November 11, 2022September 10, 2024 by Juan Soto in Features, Features 2022

By Hope Keller

In 2017, on the day the consent decree between the U.S. Department of Justice and the city of Baltimore and its police department was filed in court, then-U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch spoke at the University of Baltimore School of Law.

She began by noting that she took her oath of office on the day Baltimore erupted over Freddie Gray’s death in police custody.

“It was clear that here in Baltimore – as in so many American cities – deep-seated feelings of mistrust and hostility had gone unaddressed for too long,” Lynch said on Jan. 12, 2017. “And it was clear that in order to repair the social fabric, those issues had to be dealt with honestly, comprehensively and immediately.”

Against this backdrop, the UBalt School of Law this year launched the Center for Criminal Justice Reform (CCJR). Created with a $3 million gift from alumnus Samuel G. Rose, LL.B. ’62, the center supports community-driven efforts to improve public safety and address the harm and inequity caused by the criminal legal system. (A companion Criminal Defense and Advocacy Clinic, which begins in Spring 2023, was also created thanks to Rose’s bequest.)

Heather Warnken, executive director of the center, said it is engaging in a range of programming meant to address the mass incarceration crisis, and to reimagine public safety across the country. Part of this work means rethinking the definition of “crime victim” to build a more inclusive infrastructure of care.

“Historically, the idea of ‘crime victim’ [conjures] certain images and does not include the experience of Black men and youth who, by exponents, experience the most homicide and nonfatal gun violence in this country, including in Baltimore,” Warnken says, “yet are more likely to be criminalized than supported in the aftermath of that violence.”

Prof. David Jaros, the center’s faculty director, said he and Warnken sought to break down the “false dichotomy” between crime victims and the defendants who disproportionately wind up enmeshed in the criminal legal system.

“In fact, these are all the same people,” Jaros says. “Our system tends to divide [people] up into communities worthy of protection and respect for their rights and communities that don’t get the resources or protection of the legal system.”

Moreover, trauma begets more trauma, notes Warnken. “For people who experience violence and harm in their communities, especially in the absence of meaningful, humane, dignified responses that support them — the likelihood that they will be a victim or they will harm others is greater,” Warnken says. “Being serious about public safety means embracing what we know actually works in interrupting cycles of harm — and the systemic racism that perpetuates it.”

‘The Web of disparities’

Warnken and Jaros say the CCJR will regularly convene community and government stakeholders to identify challenges and recommend solutions to the deeply entrenched inequities in the national and local criminal legal systems.

Before coming to the law school, Warnken spent five years as a visiting fellow at the U.S. Department of Justice, where she was co-affiliated with the Bureau of Justice Statistics and Office for Victims of Crime in the first-ever position dedicated to bridging the gap between research, policy and practice to improve the response to individuals and communities impacted by crime victimization.

In that role, Warnken led an assessment of how people impacted by violence are treated in Baltimore. The report authored by her and her team — which examined the experiences of underserved survivors, focused on Black men and youth affected by gun violence — was released by the City of Baltimore in August, along with a formal response.

The report made clear that to improve public safety in Baltimore, the legacy of racism in policing must be confronted head-on.

The historical role that law enforcement played in maintaining slavery through slave patrols came up in multiple interviews, according to the report.

“It is obvious to many that Black and brown bodies have been historically viewed as a threat by law enforcement and, in society more broadly, less worthy of compassion in the wake of harm if worthy at all,” the report said in its first chapter. “These persistent attitudes undergird the web of disparities found throughout public life, including a sense of continued impunity for disparate or dehumanizing treatment from BPD.”

At a center event in February, former DOJ Inspector General Michael Bromwich, who led a two-year investigation into the Baltimore Police Department’s disgraced Gun Trace Task Force, presented his team’s findings. The video of the event had been viewed more than 11,000 times as of late October, no doubt thanks to “We Own This City,” the HBO series about the GTTF adapted from Baltimore crime reporter Justin Fenton’s book of the same name.

For years, members of the elite police unit robbed Baltimore residents and planted guns and drugs. They were arrested in 2017 and ultimately convicted on charges of racketeering, robbery, extortion and overtime fraud.

Saying the scandal was emblematic of deeper, systemic challenges in policing, Warnken says the CCJR will look into the role of judges and other key actors in responding to police misconduct.

“We’re really interested in the role of judges, who make decisions every day in their courtrooms — interpreting evidence and [determining] the truthfulness and reliability of officers — reliability that is often given great weight,” Warnken says.

The center is also involved in projects examining equity in public safety grantmaking, including how federal criminal justice grants are spent, Warnken adds.

“State and local governments get a tremendous amount of money from the Department of Justice and other federal agencies,” says Warnken. “Are they relying on police and prosecution, or are they meaningfully investing in community-based programs and alternatives to incarceration? There’s so much discretion at the state and local levels, but not enough support or transparency on how those dollars get spent.”

Benefactor Samuel Rose said in a University of Baltimore School of Law news release that the center would benefit reform efforts locally and nationally.

“It’s both exciting and gratifying to support efforts to improve the lives of individuals — the wrongly accused and the excessively punished — while working more broadly to influence local and national policy around violence prevention, mass incarceration, juvenile justice and more,” he said.

Dean Ronald Weich said the Center for Criminal Justice Reform was a logical outgrowth of the law school’s longstanding involvement in criminal justice matters.

“Some of the best defense lawyers are UB graduates, half of the state’s attorneys in Maryland are UB graduates,” Weich said. “This is a more comprehensive way of addressing issues related to criminal justice, from policing to sentencing to victims’ rights.”

And, he said, the law school is a perfect place for such a center.

“If you want to work on improving criminal justice, the University of Baltimore is the place to do it,” Weich says. “We are proud to support community-driven reform efforts in Baltimore and beyond.”

Hope Keller is a writer based in Connecticut.

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A grassroots approach to diversity

Posted on November 11, 2022September 10, 2024 by Juan Soto in Features, Features 2022

By Adam Stone

It’s easy to feel helpless when it comes to diversity, equity and inclusion. Big systemic changes are needed, institutional shifts that are outside most people’s job descriptions. Imoh Akpan, J.D. ’06, comes at it from another perspective.

“I take a grassroots approach to diversity,” he says. “It’s about being involved in volunteerism, being a mentor, being available to go to lunch. There’s a lot I can do as an individual to help diversify the legal profession.”

A partner in the Baltimore office of Goldberg Segalla, Akpan brings to bear this personal approach on a number of different fronts. He’s co-chair of the Diversity Committee of the Federation of Defense & Corporate Counsel, as well as a member of the Diversity Steering/Planning Committee of the Defense Research Institute. And he’s an active member of his firm’s diversity task force.

Akbar has also been active with the law school’s Fannie Angelos Program for Academic Excellence, which prepares students from Maryland’s historically Black colleges for admission to law school and helps them to excel and thrive throughout their legal careers.

“Imoh has been a real champion of DEI, not only in academic circles with his leadership of the Fannie Angelos Program annual gala, but also in the legal profession, with his efforts to diversify law firms by improving their hiring and promotion practices,” says UBalt Law Professor Mike Higginbotham.

Akpan’s dad was a lawyer, as was his older sister. “I saw some of the struggles she faced as a Black woman trying to rise up in larger law firms,” he says. As he thought about how people might overcome similar challenges he evolved his grassroots approach to DEI, largely from his own personal experience.

A mentor who is now a partner at D.C. law firm Locke Lord Bissell & Liddell “made himself available to me on an individual basis. He kind of gave me very direct, targeted advice that applied to me. I could bounce ideas off of him,” Akpan says. That individual attention “helped me so much just by giving me context, perspective.”

Now he brings the same philosophy to his own DEI efforts. “I want to highlight the importance of those personal, individual interactions, particularly in building and promoting the network of diverse attorneys,” he says. “Having a connection with someone who has already done it before, getting advice from someone who has faced those challenges before. That can be invaluable.”

With his professional work and extensive efforts around diversity, not to mention a wife and two children, he’s got a pretty full plate. How to keep it all in balance? He says the key ingredient is passion.

“You can say it’s a scheduling thing, but to me it’s really an effort-and-energy thing,” Akpan says. “I like the job that I do. I obviously love my family. And the work that I do on diversity is important to me.

“If you like what you’re doing, it doesn’t actually seem as hard. You can find time for all of this, if what you’re doing is meaningful to you.”

Adam Stone is a writer based in Annapolis.

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In the wake of Scotus Dobbs decision, law students work for reproductive rights

Posted on November 11, 2022September 10, 2024 by Juan Soto in Features, Features 2022

By Adam Stone

Carita Tarter was working as a summer legal intern in the American Civil Liberties Union’s Reproductive Freedom Project when the Supreme Court negated the constitutional right to abortion with its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health. “Then it was like: We know what we have to do now,” she says. “Now it’s crunch time.”

Across the School of Law, students and school organizations have been on the front lines of the fight to preserve reproductive rights. Students say the June 2022 Dobbs decision has, if anything, put new energy into their efforts.

“I definitely feel disappointed and saddened, like the justice system has failed us. But it’s reassuring to work with other people who share a passion for this, who to be solution-oriented and to keep moving forward. It makes me hopeful,” says Tarter, a 3L.

Marcella Labellarte is in her second year of law school. Prior to attending UBalt Law, she worked for the American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists, where she helped formulate policy around reproductive rights. She says she’s feeling “very motivated” to continue that work in the wake of Dobbs.

“Now is the time for the legal profession to step it up and come to the aid of people who are seeking this care,” she says.

That might mean “representing people directly, in states where women are being criminalized. It might mean doing pro bono work, making sure they are properly represented,” Labellarte says.

Engagement by the legal community might include helping companies do the paperwork to shift their headquarters into states where female employees still have access to abortion. It could also include the kind of policy work that Labellarte was doing for the OB/GYN association.

“The ABA should be taking a very strong stance on this,” she says. “One of the most important parts of our system was just blatantly disregarded, and that cannot be ignored. Lawyers need to be out there saying, “We have a big problem with this, we think the Supreme Court got it wrong.’”

It’s not just law students who are working on the front lines of reproductive rights. The law school has long been active on these issues, for example through its Center on Applied Feminism.

Center co-directors Prof. Michele Gilman and Prof. Margaret Johnson serve as faculty advisors to If/When/How, the law students’ reproductive rights organization. “We’re supporting them in their activities, and we also have been organizing and will continue to organize educational events that explain and contextualize the recent decision by the Supreme Court,” says Johnson, who is director of the Bronfein Family Law Clinic and associate dean for experiential education.

“We held a teach-in at the end of the semester when the decision came down, and we’ll be holding an event this fall with different faculty members talking about the Dobbs decision based on their areas of expertise,” she adds.

In the family law clinic, Johnson works with students on policy and legislative initiatives in the area of reproductive justice. In the wake of Dobbs, she says, “They will be working with a coalition of policymakers and advocates to help get legislation passed in Maryland that provides more rights relating to abortion.”

The legal community should be all-in on its efforts to push back against Dobbs, Johnson says, adding the ruling could be used to undermine gay marriage, the right to contraception, and other rights as well.

“This is a structural issue,” she says. “We know that women were able to grow into professional roles in part because they controlled their contraception, their ability to conceive. If we take that away, it has a structural impact on who can enter the workplace. It’s an issue of gender justice.”

The abortion fight going forward likely will play out state by state, and much will come down to the ways in which the states formulate their specific laws. In Tarter’s view, that means the lawyers need to be engaged in the conversation at all levels.

“There are a lot of things lawyers can do outside the courtroom,” she says. “As part of the community, lawyers can talk about this — because talking about abortion is still taboo, people don’t want to face the issue. Doing your part as a lawyer also means bringing it up, speaking up about it.”

Tarter said that despite the Dobbs decision, she still feels positive about the prospects for reproductive rights. “There is a lot of hope,” she says. “In my generation, I’ve only known the right to abortion, and before that there was no right to abortion. So just because it’s not open for us right now, that doesn’t mean we can’t turn it around again.”

Adam Stone is a writer based in Annapolis.

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expanding access to homeownership

Posted on November 11, 2022September 10, 2024 by Juan Soto in Features, Features 2022

By Hope Keller

Wendi Redfern-Curtis, J.D. ’07, has worked in affordable housing development for 20 years, first in Baltimore City and now in Washington, D.C., where earlier this year she became senior vice president of single-family programs at the District of Columbia Housing Finance Agency.

Redfern-Curtis now oversees several programs for current and potential homeowners that aim to expand access to home ownership in Washington.

The agency, part of the District of Columbia government, issues its own mortgages and helps buyers with down payments. In fiscal 2021, it issued more than 450 home loans worth approximately $130 million.

“I’m looking forward to making sure that our programs are speaking to the needs of individuals who are looking to plant their seeds by purchasing housing,” says Redfern-Curtis, calling home ownership a “wealth builder.”

Redfern-Curtis said that Washington’s housing market is more competitive than Baltimore’s – and that it can be especially difficult for lower-income people to afford a home there. “We have to make sure we are thoughtful about making sure people in certain income brackets have the opportunity also to have housing choice in a market that is thriving,” she says.

Redfern-Curtis started working for the Baltimore City Department of Housing and Community Development in 2002, after graduating from the University of Baltimore with a B.A. in jurisprudence. She stayed with the department throughout four years of attending law school at night, and, by 2017, had risen to deputy commissioner in the Land Resources Division.

Redfern-Curtis says her legal education prepared her well for her career.

“It had an on-the-ground application every day,” says Redfern-Curtis, who cited real estate classes with Michele Gilligan, now professor emerita, and constitutional law with Prof. Michael Higginbotham as formative experiences.

“Constitutional law was very impactful,” she says, explaining that her work for the city involved condemning properties, or using the governmental power of eminent domain. “Mike Higginbotham had a huge impact on my life.”

One of the biggest projects Redfern-Curtis worked on in Baltimore was Vacants to Value, a program launched in 2010 by then-Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake to address a rising number of vacant buildings, often with absentee landlords.

While Vacants to Value was criticized for being unable to outpace the growth in citywide vacancies, Redfern-Curtis is proud of the work that was accomplished.

“I really feel it was a successful program,” she says. “We were able to abate thousands of vacant properties by getting people to rehabilitate properties and getting people to invest in Baltimore, using full-block outcome strategies.”

Regina Hammond, founder and executive director of the ReBUILD Johnston Square organization, praises Redfern-Curtis and calls her “a listener.”

“I always got good advice and guidance from her,” says Hammond, who met Redfern-Curtis when the latter represented the Department of Housing and Community Development in the rehabilitation of the Johnston Square neighborhood in east Baltimore.

When Redfern-Curtis later spent three years in the private sector, as chief operating officer for ReBUILD Metro Inc., she continued to work with Hammond on the Johnston Square project.

“She wouldn’t say a lot, she’d just sit back and listen to all sides of the issue and then just come out with this profound statement or guideline,” Hammond says. “Anything she can do to help you or guide you, she will do that.”

Hope Keller is a writer based in Connecticut.

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Practicing Law with Compassion

Posted on November 11, 2022September 10, 2024 by Jason Keller in Features, Features 2022

By Tina Collins

For as long as he could remember, Saad Malik, J.D. ’19, envisioned a life in medicine. Then fate intervened. At the orientation for a high school internship, a Muslim American physician noted that at that time, Muslim Americans represented 1 percent of the American population but made up 10 to 15 percent of American physicians.

“The statistic was presented as a point of pride, but I took it as a lack of diversification of Muslims in the American workforce,” Malik says. The need for better representation sparked a new vision: “I wanted to be an educated and credentialed voice for my community,” he says.

Malik found his niche in law school, where he served as a member of the Honor Board and the Asian Pacific American Law Students Association (APALSA).  His favorite classes were Evidence, with Prof. David Jaros, and Federal Courts, with Prof. Kim Wehle. “Both had a way to challenge the way we approach legal concepts. They allowed and encouraged active participation and discussion, which made grasping some of the more abstract concepts a bit easier,” he says.

As a law clerk for The Hon. Lawrence Fletcher-Hill in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, Malik was introduced to the Maryland Volunteer Lawyers Service (MVLS) and embraced its vision of “a fair legal system that is free of injustice and equitably serves underrepresented Marylanders.”

Before transitioning to corporate law, Saad practiced civil defense litigation. COVID’s uncertain effect on the courts presented another opportunity for him to reevaluate his career. He recently joined Gordon Feinblatt as an associate in the real estate and EMERGE practice groups.  

Malik’s knack for adapting started as a child who spoke Urdu at home and English at school. Fluent in Hindi and Punjabi, Malik easily finds connections among people, cultures, work life and personal life. He sees inspiration all around him, from his father’s work ethic as he established a new home in 1980s America, to his wife’s commitment to her patients as a resident physician at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

He applies creativity and inclusiveness to his volunteer activities as well. He partnered with the Baltimore County Public Library to create monthly pop-up legal clinics that offer free, practical legal advice. He also chairs the risk management committee of the Islamic Society of Baltimore, which is responsible for determining financial, safety and security risks for the organization.

A self-avowed foodie and a sports fan, Malik also manages to find time to be an avid weightlifter. “Discipline is the key,” he says. “It is not so easy, at times, but I found that having a well-organized and comprehensive calendar can do wonders!”

Malik knows a balanced life, like a career in law, is always evolving and teaching new lessons. “What has prepared me is having excellent mentors along the way,” he says. He looks back on his time at UBalt Law with joy and gratitude. “I have truly enjoyed learning from some of the best legal minds in Maryland,” he says, “and taken a bit from each of my mentors to apply to my day-to-day practice.”  

Tina Collins is a writer based in Baltimore.