Baltimore Firm

New positionsPellegrini a vice president at Lucent TechnologiesLucent Technologies has named John M. Pellegrini vice president at its global service provider business office in Linthicum. Formerly with Western Electric Co., the Baltimore native is an engineering/physics graduate of Loyola College and lives in Highland.AdvertisingVoss, McPherson join Crosby MarketingCrosby Marketing Communications announced that Dennis Voss and Michael McPherson have joined the Annapolis-based regional ad and marketing agency.

Stephen L. Miles and Saiontz & Kirk, two small but highly visible Baltimore-based law firms that use aggressive advertising to lure clients, are rumored to be in merger discussions.Miles would not comment on the prospect of a combination yesterday. "Nothing has been signed," he said, adding that "if anything happens, it will happen next week.""As of 4: 30," Miles said yesterday, Saiontz & Kirk has its own law firm, "and I have mine."Messages left at Saiontz & Kirk were not returned.A deal would join two small law firms that have won widespread name recognition with huge advertising budgets.

The woman in her 60s had only the clothes on her back, a few bags of belongings, a tiny apartment without much in it. But to her they were precious possessions she wanted to make legally certain would go to a cherished friend.She pulled up a chair next to lawyer Patsy McGowan and made out her last will and testament at the Beans & Bread soup kitchen in Fells Point, leaving everything she had to a social worker who had helped her in her struggles."She had been wanting to get it done for a while," McGowan said.

Less than a week after allegations surfaced that Coleman Craten LLC defrauded Charles Schwab & Co. and a Howard County couple of nearly $1.2 million, a Florida trading firm has stopped doing business with the Baltimore firm.Corporate Securities Group had executed securities trades for the downtown firm since it opened last year -- a typical arrangement for start-up brokerages like Coleman Craten, said Joel E. Marks, vice chairman of the Boca Raton, Fla.-based firm.But Marks said yesterday that reports of two lawsuits containing the allegations in The Sun last week "raised red flags around here."

The former manager of seven HUD-subsidized, low-income apartment complexes in Maryland was charged yesterday by federal prosecutors with skimming $840,000 from the projects and diverting the money for his use.In what prosecutors described as the first charge in the state under a recently enacted federal law prohibiting equity skimming, Monte Greenbaum of Columbia was charged with diverting rent checks and security deposits from tenants from 1993 to 1998...

Helen D. M. Heaton, a retired attorney and political activist who enjoyed sailing the seas and walking Baltimore's streets, died Wednesday of cancer at Johns Hopkins Hospital. She was 62.Mrs. Heaton, a longtime Bolton Hill resident, maintained a lively interest in local Democratic politics. She worked on former Mayor William Donald Schaefer's campaigns, wrote position papers for former Gov. Harry R. Hughes' campaign and handled local constituent matters as a member of former Rep. Clarence D. Long's staff.

Two more partners have defected from the Baltimore law firm of Weinberg & Green LLC, capping a year in which the firm prevailed in a potentially lethal malpractice suit by its one-time biggest client and reorganized into a smaller form after a tumultuous 1994.Partner Arthur Fergenson, a 48-year-old former Yale Law School valedictorian and clerk to former U.S. Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, left this week for the Baltimore office of Ballard, Spahr, Andrews & Ingersoll, the Philadelphia firm announced yesterday.

Miles & Stockbridge, a Baltimore-based law firm employing 200 lawyers, announced internal changes yesterday that it said will yield a more "business-oriented" organization.Chief among the moves is the promotion of Joseph S. Welty, managing principal of the firm's Frederick office, to the position of president and managing principal of the entire firm.Mr. Welty will handle day-to-day management.James R. Eyler will remain in charge of the firm as chairman of its board and chairman of its executive committee.

Carolyn Wilson Evans of Bel Air has been appointed to the Maryland Transportation Authority by Gov. Parris N. Glendening. The authority oversees and sets policy for all state toll roads, bridges and tunnels.Ms. Evans has been associated with the Bel Air law firm of Hertsch, Gessner, Laws and Snee since 1993. Previously, she was an associate with the Baltimore firm of Venable, Baetjer and Howard.She received a bachelor's in corporate finance from Notre Dame ZTC College and a law degree from the University of Baltimore.

Two more partners left the Baltimore law firm of Semmes, Bowen & Semmes this week, bringing the number of recent defectors to at least 15 out of what was a roster of 68 partners as recently as last year.Thomas J. Manning Jr. and Wendy Widmann quit Semmes Tuesday and began work yesterday at Smith & Downey, a Towson law firm specializing in employee benefits law. Smith & Downey, which grew to nine attorneys with the pair's arrival, was formed in 1992 by partners who left Maryland's largest law firm, Piper & Marbury.

FTI Consulting reports 6.9% profit increase in Q2 FTI Consulting Inc., a Baltimore firm that finds financial fraud, helps companies restructure and provides other business-advisory services, said Tuesday that its second-quarter profit was $37.2 million, up 6.9 percent from a year earlier. Revenue for the three months ending June 30 was $360.5 million, an increase of 6.8 percent from a year earlier. Per-share earnings were 69 cents, up 6.2 percent from a year earlier. FTI also said it now employs more than 3,400 worldwide.

While Wall Street firms refused to take a chance on Brian Kroneberger when he was just a year out of college, Ferris, Baker Watts Inc. gave him a job. Now, 17 years later, Kroneberger is one of the Baltimore-rooted brokerage firm's star managers, overseeing $900 million in client assets under the Dyer Kroneberger Group in Hunt Valley. So when the 40-year-old Baltimore native learned yesterday that Ferris agreed to sell itself to Minneapolis-based RBC Dain Rauscher Inc., Kroneberger had mixed feelings.

Advertising Warschawski announced that Susan Goodell joined the staff as director of the locally based branding and marketing firm's newly created event planning division. Education Community College of Baltimore County appointed Melissa Hopp as vice president of administrative services for the multicampus institution. Also named as college vice presidents earlier were: Bruce Berman, Rich Lilley and Mark McCulloch. Loyola College in Maryland has selected Timothy Law Snyder as vice president of academic affairs for the Jesuit-run college.

Banking and finance The Columbia Bank announced the appointment of Bill Kinloch to assistant vice president and manager of its Wilde Lake Village Center branch. In the region People on the Move Stanton Communications, a Washington-based national advertising agency, appointed Matthew Pugh and Jessica Trzyna to account managers. They are assigned to the Baltimore office but also assist with professional staff development in the firm's New York and Washington offices. Legal and insurance Gordon, Feinblatt, Rothman, Hoffberger & Hollander LLC announced that R. Michael Smith and Ian N. Berger have joined the employment law practice group of the Baltimore firm.

Advertising Weber Shandwick appointed Tom Rowe as group manager and Kathleen Barry as an account executive. Both are in the international communications firm's Baltimore office.Catalpha Advertising & Design announced that Liz Werner joined the Towson-based advertising agency as a project manager. Banking and finance Provident Bank appointed Lisa LiPira, risk management, and Sherry Berman, operations, as vice presidents within their respective divisions. Susquehanna Bank named Scott B. Slick to the staff of the Hagerstown-headquartered bank as a business banker.

Advertising Eisner Communications announced the appointments of Paige Fadden and Christopher Smith as account supervisors and Kerry Flanagan as an assistant account executive at the Baltimore-based agency. Banking and finance Brown Advisory appointed Paul Li and Maneesh Bajaj as analysts for the Baltimore-based regional investment firm. PSA Financial Services said Owen Ashbrook and Steven Sherman joined the Lutherville investment, insurance and financial services firm as account executives.

Legg Mason Inc. announced yesterday the election of James W. Hirschmann as president, making him the heir apparent to Raymond A. "Chip" Mason, who built the Baltimore firm that bears his name from a regional stockbroker to the fifth-largest money manager in the world. Hirschmann, 45, has been with Western Asset Management since 1989, three years after Legg Mason bought the fixed-income firm in its first acquisition of another money manager. Since then, Western has grown into a major force in bond investing as Legg has become a major player in the investment business, recently doubling the assets it manages on behalf of clients to $850 billion through a transaction with Citigroup Inc. "Jim had actually run a business that has grown spectacularly and was our largest," Mason said in an interview yesterday.

Howard County has selected the Baltimore firm Design Collective Inc. to conduct a weeklong, intensive design gathering that will result in a master development plan for Columbia's downtown. The county is aiming to hold the five-to-seven-day charrette by the end of September. Experts, consultants and residents will be invited to share ideas about how Columbia's downtown should be transformed into a bustling urban environment. The meetings will focus on the 570 acres that make up Town Center's core, including The Mall in Columbia and the 51.7-acre, crescent-shaped property near the Merriweather Post Pavilion.

New positionsPellegrini a vice president at Lucent TechnologiesLucent Technologies has named John M. Pellegrini vice president at its global service provider business office in Linthicum. Formerly with Western Electric Co., the Baltimore native is an engineering/physics graduate of Loyola College and lives in Highland.AdvertisingVoss, McPherson join Crosby MarketingCrosby Marketing Communications announced that Dennis Voss and Michael McPherson have joined the Annapolis-based regional ad and marketing agency.

The woman in her 60s had only the clothes on her back, a few bags of belongings, a tiny apartment without much in it. But to her they were precious possessions she wanted to make legally certain would go to a cherished friend.She pulled up a chair next to lawyer Patsy McGowan and made out her last will and testament at the Beans & Bread soup kitchen in Fells Point, leaving everything she had to a social worker who had helped her in her struggles."She had been wanting to get it done for a while," McGowan said.