Clients

The State Department revealed this month that the United States has detained more than 200 children at its military prison in Afghanistan. I represent one of them, a boy who left his parents' home in Karachi, Pakistan in July 2008, when he was 14, on a trip to his grandparents' house in western Pakistan. He was allegedly captured in Afghanistan a few weeks later and has been "detained" at Bagram Air Force Base ever since. What frustrates me about the State Department report is not the number of children detained, but that the U.S. won't let me or other lawyers make a case that these children should be released.

Mind Over Machines Inc., an Owings Mills-based consulting and information technology firm, announced Thursday it has acquired the assets of technology firm The Seva Group, making the combined company one of the largest IT consulting firms in the mid-Atlantic. Financial terms of the purchase agreement, finalized on Wednesday, were not disclosed. Tom Loveland will remain CEO of Mind Over Machines, which has more than 50 employees, while Chris Long, former president of The Seva Group, will become executive vice president and a shareholder.

Editor: On behalf of the staff and clients at Anna's House, I want to express my gratitude for the wonderful private/public partnership and collaboration between Harford Transit, Harford County Parks and Recreation and Catholic Charities of Baltimore. So often we focus on all of the negative circumstances around us, and during this holiday season, I wanted to share some positive news.  Anna's House is a program of Catholic Charities of...

At Carroll County Food Sunday, peanut butter has fallen off the list of staples. And short of an infusion of money, the food bank won't be able to continue helping church pantries in the county next year, leaving the agency with just three locations in the sprawling county. At Fish & Loaves Pantry in West Baltimore, the cupboard was bare of canned green beans and other vegetables last week, as the Rev. Andre Samuel struggled to feed a clientele that has doubled in size over the past year.

Suzanna "Sue" Miller, whom friends called "Mrs. Baltimore" for her role in selling homes to those moving here, died of pneumonia Saturday at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. The Pikesville resident was 80. "She was an irreplaceable person," said Lynne R. Miller, who with her husband, Dr. Edward D. Miller, former Johns Hopkins Medicine chief executive officer, was a close friend. "She brought together so many people. She was such an ambassador for Baltimore, we called her and her husband Mr. and Mrs. Baltimore.

Scott Butler is a busy man. A managing director at Northwestern Mutual Financial Network-Maryland, he oversees the Columbia, Frederick and Hagerstown branches. In addition to volunteering regularly at the Living Classrooms Foundation, for six years he coached both of his daughters' soccer teams, which meant he had to be on the field at 5:15 p.m. four days a week. How did he get away with that? He didn't have to: It's company policy. "We encourage our employees to do the exact same thing," Butler said.

When Kiheem Taylor was charged with kidnapping two teenagers at a Timonium light-rail station and raping one of them, prosecutors struggled with an all-too common problem — they didn't have enough solid evidence. But Taylor gave prosecutors a break when he made phone calls from the Baltimore County Detention Center. Just months earlier, authorities had begun recording inmates' phone calls, and Taylor implicated himself while talking to an ex-girlfriend. Judge Robert N. Dugan said at the time that the call was "overwhelming, damning evidence of [Taylor's]

Diana Hirschhorn and The Hirschhorn Group of Long & Foster Real Estate Inc. were recently recognized for their outstanding sales record with more than 5 million in settled sales for the third quarter of this year. "I am so proud of what we have been able to accomplish this year. The market has certainly been challenging but with the top notch service we provide combined with The Hirschhorn Group's very aggressive marketing campaign as well as the many tools and services of Long and Foster, the region's leading real estate company, we are able to help our clients meet their goals, whether it is on the buying or selling side of the transaction.

Baltimore-based Vertis Holdings Inc., at one time the largest U.S. producer of advertising inserts in newspapers, plans to sell itself to a Wisconsin printing company for $258.5 million through an auction in U.S. Bankruptcy Court. Vertis filed for Chapter 11 protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware Wednesday. It also sought court approval to sell its assets to Quad/Graphics, which produces retail advertising inserts and direct marketing and in-store marketing campaigns. It is the third bankruptcy-law filing in five years for Vertis, which also sought the court's protection to reorganize its finances in 2008 and 2010.

The state's highest court has indefinitely suspended Prince George's County Del. Tiffany Alston's law license for failing to properly represent a client and accounting problems at her law firm. Alston can apply to have her license reinstated but the decision offered no recommendation of when the court might be ready to reconsider its decision "This is because we do not wish to imply that merely after a certain period of time has elapsed [she] shall be considered favorably for reinstatement," Judge Mary Ellen Barbera wrote in the opinion.