Baltimore Lawyer

We've all been there: The utility or appliance dealer says you must be home within some large window of time on a certain day for its employees to come hook up your phone or deliver your refrigerator. Then they don't show up. When that happened to Baltimore County lawyer Joseph T. Williams, he called Sears Roebuck & Co. to complain. He learned that no one could have come to fix his washing machine during most of the four-hour span he was told to be home because Sears technicians were in a regularly scheduled staff meeting.

Harry S. Wolf, an artist, actor and retired Westinghouse Electric Corp. librarian and designer who once ran a long-shot campaign for mayor of Baltimore, died of septicemia Feb. 6 at Sinai Hospital. She was 84. Mrs. Wolf was born and raised Harry Francis Schlesinger in Atlanta. It was her father's desire that his first child be named after his father - a prominent Atlanta candy manufacturer - and when she turned out to be a girl, she was given the name anyway. Mrs. Wolf - a blithe spirit - stood 5 feet 1 inch tall and was recognizable by her full head of auburn hair and fine tailoring.

John George Noppinger Sr., a retired lawyer who for 50 years had a one-man business and tax law practice in downtown Baltimore, died of pneumonia Sunday at Oak Crest Village in Parkville, where he had lived for the past eight years. The former Towson resident was 90. Born in Baltimore and raised on East Lombard Street in Highlandtown, he was a graduate of City College, where he took night classes to earn his high school diploma. He then received a degree in business administration from the old Baltimore College of Commerce in 1934 and joined Baltimore Gas and Electric Co., where he became a senior accounting clerk.

Richard W. Emory, a Baltimore lawyer who led statewide efforts to ban slot machines and to promote equal employment opportunities in the 1960s and was a former board chairman of Morgan State University, died Monday of congestive heart failure at Brightwood Retirement Community in Lutherville. He was 89. Gov. J. Millard Tawes appointed Mr. Emory to head a commission to phase out slot machine gambling in 1962. At the time, Governor Tawes said he worried that organized crime was taking over casinos in Anne Arundel, Calvert, Charles and St. Mary's counties.

Loreen Estelle Gephardt, 95, the mother of Democratic Rep. Richard A. Gephardt, died Friday night of heart disease at a nursing home in St. Louis. She had been a part of the political life of her son, a Democratic presidential candidate and longtime St. Louis congressman, into her advanced age. She campaigned for him, knocking on doors, attending rallies and speaking to groups on his behalf. Ruby Grant Martin, 70, civil rights director under President Lyndon B. Johnson and a Cabinet member in the administration of Virginia Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, died Thursday in Richmond.

In Baltimore City Man pleads guilty in kidnapping case A 45-year-old man who posed as a bail bondsman pleaded guilty in Baltimore Circuit Court yesterday to conspiracy to kidnapping and perjury. Joseph Zahl Jr., 45, of the 1800 block of Cremen Road in Pasadena, was accused of posting bail for three people, then kidnapping and brutalizing them. Zahl has never been a licensed bondsman, said prosecutor Elizabeth Ritter. Judge Thomas E. Noel set an April 25 sentencing date for Zahl, and agreed to give him no more than 10 years in prison.

Longtime attorney Anton J.S. Keating launched his candidacy for city state's attorney yesterday, promising a simple plan for prosecutorial fairness - an oblique swipe at incumbent Patricia C. Jessamy. Keating had wanted to release 259 balloons to symbolize the number of homicides in Baltimore last year. But that's littering - a crime. Instead, he announced his candidacy inside a Charles Street restaurant, where he talked of restoring integrity to the city prosecutor's office. "The weakest link in the criminal justice system has become the state's attorney's office," he said.

The Maryland Court of Appeals has suspended the law license of a Baltimore lawyer for at least six months after finding that he failed to deliver on agreements to represent clients. William Michael Monfried charged one client for doing little or no work and neglected another client, according to the ruling. His lawyer, Gregg L. Bernstein, characterized the incidents as misunderstandings between clients and Monfried, whose career has been as a Baltimore prosecutor and defense attorney.

The University of Baltimore yesterday named Robert L. Bogomolny, a former pharmaceutical company executive and law school dean, to replace H. Mebane Turner as president of the nontraditional urban college. A native of Cleveland, Bogomolny, 63, served for 14 years as corporate senior vice president and general counsel of G.D. Searle & Co., a pharmaceutical company, before stepping down last year. Before that, he served 10 years as professor of law and dean at the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law at Cleveland State University.

The easygoing Baltimore lawyer representing the man in the center of the Allfirst financial debacle is no stranger to high-profile figures attracting worldwide attention - from the limousine driver in the murder case that embroiled Ravens star Ray Lewis to Linda Tripp and her secret recordings that helped impeach President Bill Clinton. But unlike many of his clients, David B. Irwin, 54, a 1966 Gilman School graduate who rose quietly but steadily to a reputation as one of the Baltimore area's top criminal lawyers, has never acquired a flamboyant image.