Law Firm

Development Petrie Ross Ventures LLC announced that James C. "Chip" DiPaula Jr. joined the Annapolis-based retail and mixed-use property development firm as a partner, senior vice president and chief operating officer. He most recently was chief of staff for former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr. and before that was a senior vice president for MacKenzie and Associates Inc. Advertising MGH added Kristen Windle, account executive;Melanie Welsh, online media buyer/planner; and Natalie Van Buskirk, as account manager to the staff of the Owings Mills-based marketing communications agency.

Jenkens & Gilchrist, once a high-flying Texas law firm with a national reach, will shut its doors for good and pay the Internal Revenue Service a $76 million fine as part of a deal announced yesterday with the Justice Department over questionable tax shelters. Jenkens & Gilchrist, only six years ago among the largest, highest-earning law firms in the nation, becomes the latest casualty in the government's growing crackdown on aggressive tax shelters. The agreement is also likely to bolster a wider criminal investigation by federal prosecutors into the web of firms and individuals that made and sold aggressive shelters from the late 1990s through recent years.

Banking executive Edward J. "Ned" Kelly III, who as head of Baltimore's Mercantile Bankshares Corp. oversaw its sale to PNC Financial Services Group, is giving up his post at the combined company for a job at Washington-based Carlyle Group, one of the world's largest private equity firms. Kelly has been tapped to help run a new Carlyle unit that will invest in financial services, including banks and insurance companies. He said the firm approached him in recent months, and that he has known Carlyle founder David M. Rubenstein since they both worked on Walter F. Mondale's failed presidential bid more than two decades ago. "It's a unique opportunity and makes perfect sense for me," Kelly said yesterday in an interview.

One month after stepping down as Maryland's first Republican governor in a generation, Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. and several of his top aides are opening a Baltimore-area office of a major North Carolina law firm, which will include a public affairs consulting group. "Sitting in an office and billing hourly is not something I wanted to do," said Ehrlich, 49. "The opportunity to bring in new clients, meet challenges, bring in people who have done such a good job running the state was very attractive to me."

Elizabeth S. Worcester, a former model and retired receptionist, died Saturday of heart failure at St. Joseph Medical Center. The former Roland Park resident was 92. Born Elizabeth Sothoron in Baltimore, she was a direct descendant of George Read, a Delaware signer of the Declaration of Independence, and Robert Oliver, the Baltimore merchant and Baltimore & Ohio Railroad executive whose 68-acre country estate became Green Mount Cemetery in 1839....

The Carroll County Board of Education voted 4-1 last night to hire a top-flight Baltimore law firm to represent it to deal with several construction problems that have led to lawsuits and a county grand jury investigation.A letter to the board from Miles & Stockbridge -- released last night -- confirmed that the firm will represent the school system "in connection with the review of contracts for the construction of Cranberry Station Elementary School, the wastewater treatment plant for Francis Scott Key High School, and related matters."

WHO CAN blame Lance Billingsley for trying to get in on a good thing? The chairman of the University of Maryland's board of regents sent out notices that he is hanging out his law firm's shingle in Annapolis to grab some of that lucrative lobbying business.Lobbying is a driving force in state government. Last year, more than 550 special-interest representatives billed 1,800 clients more than $20 million to plead their causes.The rules of the lobbying game are simple: There are no rules.That's an overstatement, of course.

Baltimore-based Venable Baetjer & Howard said yesterday that it plans to merge with Tucker Flyer of Washington in a transaction intended to strengthen the business practices of both law firms in the Washington-Baltimore corridor.The merger will add Tucker's 55 lawyers to Venable's 295, giving the combined firm 190 lawyers in Washington and about 160 in Baltimore.The deal is expected to give Venable the second-largest number of lawyers -- 350 -- in the Baltimore-Washington area, behind Hogan & Hartson.

After he completes his final term as mayor in December, Kurt L. Schmoke will become a partner in the high-powered corporate law office of Wilmer, Cutler and Pickering, a Washington-based firm with a satellite office in Baltimore.Schmoke, who decided three months ago not to seek re-election, is expected to announce the plans this morning at his weekly news conference.The new job appears to be a perfect fit for a law firm handling complex government regulatory affairs for corporations and the Rhodes Scholar mayor who proudly wears the label of "policy wonk."

Many describe it as a perfect fit. When Kurt L. Schmoke leaves the mayor's office at the end of the year, he will join a law firm that seems tailor-made for him.Wilmer, Cutler and Pickering -- considered by some to be the top firm in Washington and among the five best in the country -- will provide Schmoke the opportunity to work on government issues on national and international stages."

Law firm addition The Annapolis law firm of Hyatt & Weber has added Mark Rosasco to its practice. Rosasco focuses on personal injury and medical malpractice law. He is a graduate of Loyola College, earned his law degree from the University of Baltimore School of Law and is a resident of Arnold. Founded in 1979, Hyatt & Weber is a full-service law firm offering a range of legal services in real estate, land use, litigation, business law and related matters to individuals and businesses.

Just six months after he took the bar exam, the small law firm where Justin Browne was working told him business had dropped so significantly that they were laying off almost all of its associates. With a newborn baby and a wife to care for and law school bills to pay, Browne found himself without a job. The firm, which specialized in contract, construction, consumer and commercial law, hadn't been doing so well. "Frankly, I kind of knew that this was going to happen," Browne said. "The writing was on the wall."

BAYSIDE, N.Y. -One hint that something might have been amiss in William Parente's professional life came from a nondescript law office in a shopping center in Queens. Attorney Bruce Montague, uneasy about an investment he had made through Parente, asked for his money back - but got, he claims, nearly a half-million dollars in bounced checks. Now, as detectives search for reasons that Parente would kill his family and himself in a Towson hotel room, attention is turning to the midtown Manhattan tax and estate lawyer's financial dealings.

Annapolis Warehouse boutique sale is today The Annapolis Warehouse Sale, featuring clothing and accessories from more than a dozen local boutiques and designers, will be held from noon to 5 p.m. today at Loews Annapolis Hotel, 126 West St. Admission is $10 for the VIP hour from noon to 1 p.m. to benefit Modest Needs, and free from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. The sale will feature up to 75 percent off end-of-season merchandise, including women's and children's clothing,...

M. Peter Moser, a Baltimore attorney who became a prominent advocate of ethics law, died of cancer Friday at his home at The Towers at Harbor Court condominium downtown. He was 80. Mr. Moser was born in Baltimore and attended McDonogh School from the first grade until he graduated just before his 17th birthday, completing high school in 2 1/2 years. He attended The Citadel, graduating with honors from the South Carolina military college in 2 1/2 years, and then went to Harvard Law School, receiving his degree at age 22. When he took the Maryland bar exam, he scored the second-highest grade that year.

Robert A. Spar, a tax attorney and partner in his law firm who assisted new and emerging technology businesses, often in the medical field, died in his sleep of a gastrointestinal tumor Tuesday at his Elkridge home. He was 44. Born in Queens, N.Y., he received a Bachelor of Science degree at the University at Buffalo and earned a degree from the Catholic University of America's Columbus School of Law. He moved to Baltimore in 1988 when he joined Weinberg & Green and remained with the law firm when it merged 10 years later and became Saul Ewing.

A federal grand jury indicted a former employee of a Baltimore County law firm and accused him of stealing $1 million from his employer and then setting the offices on fire to cover his tracks, prosecutors said yesterday. George Michael Perez, 32, of Dundalk faces wire fraud, arson and money laundering charges in connection with alleged thefts from Wittstadt & Wittstadt P.A., and the three-alarm fire at the firm's former offices at 40 S. Dundalk Ave., according to the indictment. A message left with Mark H. Wittstadt, the firm's managing partner, was not immediately returned yesterday afternoon.

Advertising MGH announced the appointments of Rachel Skelley as a senior media buyer/planner, Nick Kelly as public relations account executive and Nicole Joyce as account coordinator for the Owings Mills-based marketing communications agency. Banking and finance Northwestern Mutual Financial Network appointed James Jones as a financial representative. He formerly was sales director for American Limousines. Education The Gilman School announced that John E. Schmick was named headmaster of the private Roland Park boys' school.

Appointments Fred Jacobs, a senior vice president for the consulting firm AKRF Inc., has been named to a post on the Maryland State Water Quality Advisory Committee. Awards The West Virginia Coal Association presented Foundation Coal Holdings Inc., based in Linthicum Heights, with two Mountaineer Guardian safety awards for its operations at Laurel Creek Mine 5 and the Paynter Branch Mine. Contracts Merkle, a Lanham-based database marketing agency, signed a three-year multimillion-dollar deal with the American Heart Association to provide analytical insight, segmentation and contact optimization for donor renewal and acquisition plans.

A former office manager for a Columbia law firm pleaded guilty yesterday to stealing almost $706,000 from the company - one of the largest embezzlement cases in county history, according to the state's attorney's office. Christine McClain-Sloane, 41, used company checks to pay for personal expenses for six of the 11 years she worked at Nagle and Zaller PC, the Howard County state's attorney's office said. McClain-Sloane pleaded guilty to two counts of felony theft scheme, and Howard Circuit Judge Diane O. Leasure revoked her bail.