Features – Page 3 – University of Baltimore School of Law Magazine

WARRIORS FOR CIVIL RIGHTS: Alumni tackle police and prison brutality

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

By Adam Stone

In January 2020, a Prince George’s County police officer shot and killed William Green. At the time, Green’s hands were cuffed behind his back, and he was sitting in the front seat of a parked police cruiser.

As part of the legal team representing Green’s family, Malcolm Ruff, J.D. ’12, helped win a $20 million settlement for the victim’s mother and two adult children. Ruff says his UBalt Law education “was a foundation that really set me on the path towards fighting for justice and standing in the gap for folks who had been violated by the government.”

He’s one of several UBalt Law alumni who are focused on police brutality and detention-center abuse cases.

Kristen Mack, J.D. ’17, tackles such cases as an associate attorney at Hansel Law, PC. The firm represented Daquan Wallace, a 19-year-old who was beaten and left paraplegic while in pre-trial detention.

As Mack and others have learned, it’s incredibly difficult to hold police and prison officials accountable for mistakes and abuses. “There are a lot of immunities and laws that are designed to protect the state from liability,” she says. That includes various caps on damages.

“You need someone that is extremely knowledgeable of this subject matter so that you can get around these caps, because — let’s be serious — the only way that we’re going to change things is if we make them pay enough money,” says Mack.

Since entering the field, Mack has worked hard to master the nuances. “Every case is very different, and the details matter tremendously in what we do,” she says. “I learn the most when I’m having to oppose motions — motions for summary judgment in particular, because it forces me to sit down and go head-to-head with these issues.”

Larry Greenberg, J.D. ’94, says a detailed understanding of the law helps him to represent those who are “consistently being targeted and then abused by the system.”

The wheels of such justice turn slow: Greenberg spent close to five years trying to win compensation for the family of a man who was run over and killed by a police officer who simply wasn’t paying attention to the road.

“There are immunities that apply. If an officer is driving his or her vehicle and they’re in the course of their employment, one immunity applies. If they’re driving and they’re in the course of duty, but they’re not in an emergency situation, another immunity applies,” he says.

In cases like these, “all of the hoops you have to jump through to potentially get justice exist to benefit the state, not the injured,” says Greenberg. With the odds stacked in favor of law enforcement, “you have to know how to avoid the pitfalls and land mines that go with civil rights cases.”

Lawyers in this field have to keep current. “I always read the new cases that come out, and I don’t limit it just to Maryland. I’m looking at federal courts, I’m looking at the Supreme Court,” he says. At the same time, he works to help shape the legal landscape in favor of plaintiffs. “We’re in Annapolis frequently,” Greenberg says, “working with the legislators to try to make rules that help the citizens, not just the state.”

Such efforts helped lead to adoption of the Maryland Police Accountability Act, a 2021 law requiring all counties to create three police oversight boards: a Police Accountability Board, an Administrative Charging Committee, and a Trial Board. 

“I believe the police play an important part of our system. However, I believe those officers should be well trained,” he says. “Bad hiring, bad training, failure to discipline — all of these things come about, and that’s why people get hurt.”

Shifting landscape

Like others, Greenberg has seen public opinion start to shift in the wake of the George Floyd murder and Black Lives Matter protests. But he worries that the relatively recent uptick in awareness will prove temporary. “As a society, we are reactive,” he says. “It gets into our discussion for a news cycle … and then it’s gone. The news cycle comes and goes.”

Allen Honick, J.D. ’16, says that while increased public awareness has helped, deep institutional changes are needed, and those take time. “There has been progress, one foot in front of the other, but it is very slow,” he says.

Many of Honick’s cases involve matters like wrongful arrest, wrongful incarceration, prison guard misconduct, and related civil right claims. How to win such cases? Stubbornness helps a lot.

“You have to be resolved that you’re not going to get dissuaded by the procedural requirements, the onerous preconditions to suit, the obfuscation and the stonewalling,” Honick says. “You just have to resolve ahead of time that you’re going to put your head down and see this thing through.”

On the plus side, says Ruff, everyone these days has a camera — not just policy body cams, but the cellphones that take every event immediately to social media.

“That is changing the paradigm of how people view accountability for law enforcement,” he says. “For years, officers were able to create what we call silent narratives: They can spin a situation, because they get the benefit of the doubt. That was being abused to a very high degree.”

In the era of social media, that’s changing. “We recently handled a matter against the Baltimore County Police Department, where our client was accused of assaulting an officer and resisting arrest,” Ruff says. The officer claimed justification for violence, “and the video just simply did not show what he said.”

Real-time documentation by itself won’t fix the accountability gap. But it’s one step toward rectifying a system that these lawyers say has for too long been tilted in favor of institutions, rather than individuals.

Adam Stone is a writer based in Annapolis.

Photos by Maximilian Franz.

Share this story with your network:

People’s Parity Project Seeks to Make The Legal System Offer Justice for All

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

By Adam Stone

Andrew Loewen sees a fundamental problem with the way the law works.

Simply put, “the legal system is not delivering justice for most real people,” says Loewen, J.D. ’22. “People can’t afford the lawyers they need. They don’t know how the law works. The legal system favors those with the right background, the right connections, and bigger bankrolls for endless litigation.”

To raise awareness, Loewen founded the UBalt Law chapter of the People’s Parity Project (PPP), a national organization that describes itself as seeking to “unrig the legal system and build a justice system that values people over profits.”

What makes justice inaccessible? It’s not just the cost of going to court. “One thing PPP has highlighted is the fact that people are locked out of courts in the first place, because they sign away their rights through contracts that come with arbitration agreements,” says Loewen, who is currently a legal fellow with the Public Rights Project. Consumers and employees alike find, too late, that such contracts work against them.

As incoming president of the UBalt group, Melissa Murphy, J.D. ’24, is in the midst of a two-year PPP fellowship. She’s looking at state courts, “how judges get to the bench, what their professional background is, what their racial background is, their social-economic background,” she says. “Are those decision-makers actually reflecting the population that they’re serving? And if they’re not, how can we make those changes?”

Murphy worked previously as a paralegal in the nonprofit world, supporting survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault who couldn’t navigate the law on their own. Then she went to a private firm, “and I saw firsthand how expensive it is to have somebody with a legal background to guide you through the system,” she says.

“I wanted see how we could bridge the gap, so that that you don’t need a ton of money in order to get access,” she says. And law school seems to her like the right place to have those kinds of conversations.

PPP on campus “is making connections with the different student groups,” Murphy says. Environmental law issues for example have a parity component, as do workforce and housing law. “We trying to make the connections so that we are all working towards similar goals.”

UBalt PPP immediate past president Laura Grant, J.D. ’23, worked for an employment law firm before coming to law school. “I saw how the corporate world tends to take advantage of low wage people through these complicated legal restrictions,” she says. “Employment contracts, nondisclosure agreements, non-compete agreements all had a real effect on people.”

When students are learning the law, “that’s the perfect time to instill the kinds of values that People’s Parity Project has,” she says.

With PPP helping to bring parity to the fore, “students can be thinking about increasing access to justice, while they’re actually studying the law,” she says. “They can talk about these things in class. And when they’ve graduated, they are already thinking: OK, what can I do to make things better?”

Grant said that newly minted lawyers have a special obligation to think about issues of fairness and equity, and that doing so will make them better at their jobs.

“We’re expected to guide our clients through some of the most stressful times in their lives,” she says. “I have that credibility, and it’s important to use for the benefit of people who don’t have it. Recognizing that I’m in this position to help people have access: that makes me a better lawyer.”

Through its PPP chapter, Loewen says, UBalt Law can help the legal profession make incremental progress on these complex issues.

“People don’t necessarily go to law school so they can change the world,” he says. “But we can shine light on the power that people do have, and the impact that they could have.”

Adam Stone is a writer based in Annapolis.

Share this story with your network:

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.

Share this story with your network:

Law Alumni Lead Expungement Efforts in MD

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

By Matthew Liptak

Chris Sweeney, J.D. ’16

When he graduated from UBalt Law, Chris Sweeney, J.D. ’16, knew he wanted to serve the public, but he didn’t know that becoming workforce development manager at Maryland Volunteer Lawyers Service (MVLS) would lead him to a niche of the law that would be so rewarding: expungement.

Expungement is the legal process of removing the public record of someone’s involvement in a criminal matter. The records don’t even have to result in a conviction, they just have to involve law enforcement. Eliminating records may sound like a simple task, but it’s an act that can have far-reaching impacts on the lives of those who are exposed to public scrutiny.

“I didn’t know I was going to get into being an expungement guy, but I very quickly became passionate about this work because I saw how much it means to people,” says Sweeney. “To erase something that has been a stigma to them, and a ghost of something they did in the past – I’ve seen a lot of people get very emotional getting these forms signed, thinking, ‘This is finally gone from my life.’”

Sweeney says at least 80 percent of his work at MVLS involves expungement. He regularly makes presentations at Baltimore job-training sites, educating people on their legal rights. Many of those attending are formerly incarcerated individuals who are working to find a job or better housing. Public criminal records, which come up in background checks, can be a barrier to a better life for them.

He usually spends 10 to 20 minutes in person with his clients. The expungement petition is prepared beforehand, so they only need to confirm some vital information and sign it. Occasionally a prosecutor or judge may have questions or objections to the petition, which is normally taken care of in a court hearing.

“I think expungement is immensely important,” says Angus Derbyshire, J.D. ’14, director for pro bono at Maryland Legal Aid, the largest provider of free legal services in the state. “There’s a whole racial justice component to this, too. We have to be cognizant of the fact that we have overpoliced our Black and brown communities for so long.” Maryland Legal Aid offers regular expungement clinics throughout the state.

Michael Christopher Stone, J.D. ’13, is director of pro bono programs at the Homeless Persons Representation Project. Expungements are a large part of the workload for the roughly 400 attorneys, law students and paralegals who work for the organization. Like many other UBalt Law alumni, Stone is passionate about helping people in need.

“Every time expungement opportunities expand, we’re getting closer and closer as a society to recognizing that you can’t saddle someone with the ‘Scarlet letter’ forever, and still expect them to continue in society,” he says.

New laws make expungements easier

Expungements are expected to increase in Maryland. Thanks to Maryland’s Senate Bill 201 of 2021, many public criminal records will be automatically cleared by October 2024. And Maryland residents with cannabis possession convictions are now eligible to have those records expunged, now that simple possession of cannabis is legal in Maryland.

Stone said SB 201 will lead to much more work for attorneys. Expungement law has become much more complicated in recent years, as opportunities for the expungement process have grown, he says. [View a May 2023 training video on criminal record expungement in Maryland.] But he appreciates the new lease on life SB 201 offers to many Marylanders.

“It’s the only automatic expungement in the law, and it was hard-fought for,” he says.

In addition, as of Oct. 1, 2023, waiting periods shorten for filing a petition to expunge certain conviction records, including those for cannabis-related convictions. Under SB 37, known as the REDEEM Act of 2023, waiting periods for filing expungement petitions for a conviction eligible for expungement under § 10-110 of the Maryland Criminal Procedure Code are halved. This means the new waiting period is five years for a listed misdemeanor in general (formerly 10 years) and seven years for a listed felony in general (formerly 15 years).

To all three of these UBalt Law alumni, the expansion of expungement means the growth of justice in Maryland’s evolving legal system.

“People call it a second sentence, or a ‘street sentence,’” Sweeney says of public criminal records. “We always say people have to pay their debt to society. This person has done that. They’re still living with this record.

“I think that people should not be defined by the worst things that they’ve done, for the most part. Regular folks mess up and they can change. I absolutely believe that. People deserve a chance to succeed, so I think of clearing records as an investment in that person.”

Matthew Liptak writes from Severna Park, Md.

Share this story with your network:

Osasu Dorsey, JD ’09, Brings Legal Acumen to Public Service Roles

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

By Adam Stone

Dorsey with U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, at left, and EPA Administrator Michael Regan.

Osasu Dorsey has built a career in public service since graduating from UBalt Law in 2009.

She has served as chief counsel of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (in the U.S. Department of Transportation), and as associate deputy general counsel for the U.S. Army. In July, she became White House senior associate counsel and special assistant to the President.

We caught up with Dorsey to learn what drives her.

What motivates you to focus on public service?

I come from a long line of public servants. My dad was a public servant, and so was my grandfather. It’s always been an interest of mine, and it’s in my spirit. I actually started my career in journalism for exactly that reason, to serve the public and to share information and support them. Participating in public interest programs in law school, such as the Low-Income Taxpayer Clinic, helped provide a solid foundation.

As for going the government route: For every single federal employee, your responsibility and duty comes from your oath of office. So you have an obligation as a federal employee to follow the law, and the legal office plays a huge role in helping agency officials execute the mission consistent with the laws, regulations and policies that have been put in place.

What do you focus on in your White House work?

I am on the ethics and compliance team in the White House Counsel’s Office. We advise and train White House employees on a wide range of matters, and manage the White House ethics program.

You’ve tackled issues around energy, ethics, DEI, hazardous materials, transportation, safety, nuclear security and cybersecurity. What skills do you draw on in addressing these very varied topics?

Having a passion for learning is huge — just being interested in what the clients do, what the mission of the agency is and how that serves the public, and committing to serve that purpose.

As the lawyer, you’re lawyering, but you also end up being close to clients in other ways: you’re someone they can bounce ideas off and consult because of your good judgment and discernment. I look to build a relationship with the client. It means always being willing to do more than your position description says, always being willing to serve where you’re needed.

Something I learned from one of my former bosses: Act like an owner. To me this means, own the work and the agency’s mission, and be willing to chip in where you’re needed. I believe that is a key to being successful in any role, including as the attorney.

How does being trained as a lawyer help?

Just like in journalism, part of being a lawyer is the ability to earn people’s trust — to just sit down and have conversations with them, to help them get where they’re trying to go. So definitely the communication skills, and the writing skills: just being able to communicate very clearly, concisely, for the audience that you’re talking to.

As a lawyer, you’re trained to be intuitive, and to be able to meet people where they are. Then you combine that with the communication skills, to pull out information from people and give them the best legal advice.

Career goals? Where do you see yourself in five or 10 years?

Every time I’ve been asked in interviews, I give my most honest answer, which is: I don’t know. I know that I want to follow my passion and my interests, and learn new things.

I don’t have a particular place that I want to be in the next year, or the next five years or 10 years. I know I want to continuously help people. I want to be in roles where I can take of my family, and do work that’s interesting.

Outside of work: any hobbies you’d care to tell us about?

I love cooking dishes from all over the world. Most recently? Well, every culture has their version of a kebab. Nigerian cuisine has something called suya. It’s basically street food, meat on a stick, seasoned with special kind of Nigerian seasoning. It’s one of my favorite foods and I just learned how to make it. I’m very proud of that.

Adam Stone is a writer based in Annapolis.

Share this story with your network:

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.

Share this story with your network:

Students and Faculty Honored at 27th School of Law Awards Ceremony

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

Dean Ronald Weich presents Prof. Angela Vallario with the Saul Ewing Award for Outstanding Teaching in Transactional Law.

The UB School of Law held its 27th Annual Awards Ceremony on April 24 at the Angelos Law Center. The Hon. John Morrissey, J.D. ’89, chief judge, District Court of Maryland, was the keynote speaker.

Leaders of the Jewish Law Students Association accept the SBA Award for Outstanding Service to UB by a Student Organization.

For the Class of 2022, Zachary Babo was the valedictorian, and Claudia Wozniak was the salutatorian. Paola Flores received the 2022 Pro Bono Challenge Award.

Julianna Felkoski and Aiden Galloway received the Clinical Legal Education Association (CLEA) Outstanding Student-Attorney Team Award for their work with the Community Development Clinic. Lindsey Eshelman received the CLEA Outstanding Externship Award.

Clinical Excellence Awards went to Russhell Ford, for her work in the Community Development Clinic, and Sophia Yaple, for her contributions to the work of The Bob Parsons Veterans Advocacy Clinic.

The Student Bar Association recognized Prof. Neha Lall with the James May Faculty Award and Asst. Dean Alyssa Fieo with the Staff Mentoring Award. The SBA named Julianne Greene Student Leader of the Year and recognized Jewish Law Students Association for Outstanding Service to UB by a Student Organization.

View the full list of winners.

Share this story with your network:

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.

Share this story with your network:

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.”

Share this story with your network:

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.