Around The Region

- Julie Bykowicz

Attorney asks to be removed from teacher's lawsuit

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The attorney for a Howard County teacher who won a racial discrimination lawsuit against the school system two years ago has filed a motion to have herself removed from a second lawsuit, claiming that her client's actions have "blindsided her." The motion filed May 22 by Dawn Martin, a lawyer based in Washington, to have herself removed as Michelle Maupin's lawyer has been granted. In July 2007, a jury awarded Maupin, who is black, $237,000 in compensatory and punitive damages for racial discrimination she suffered while teaching at Centennial High in Ellicott City. Maupin, 40, who is now an English teacher at Wilde Lake High School in Columbia, said she was placed on paid administrative leave in September because she filed a lawsuit for $1 million claiming she has received several reprimands, including one after telling administrators that a fellow teacher used a racial slur in front of students. Martin, who did not represent Maupin in her 2007 suit, requested to be removed from the current case because of "irreconcilable differences which literally make continued representation impossible," she wrote in the motion.

- John-John Williams IV