Maryland Legal

A three-year legal battle between Maryland Legal Aid Bureau Inc. attorneys and their bosses is intensifying, paralyzing the operations of the agency that is supposed to help Maryland's disadvantaged resolve their legal disputes, attorneys in and outside of the group said yesterday.The managers of the bureau said yesterday they will appeal an administrative law judge's finding that they violated labor laws. And while union negotiators tangle with management on that front, union members are waging an internal war: The head of the Baltimore offices of the National Labor Relations Board said he will decide by tomorrow the fate of a petition by some staff members for a vote on whether to get rid of the union.

Rebecca F. Parker, who had worked as an administrator for Maryland Legal Services Inc., died Jan. 17 from breast cancer at her Charles Center apartment. She was 62. A daughter of a minister and a homemaker, the former Rebecca Fletcher was born and raised in Camden, S.C., where she graduated from high school. She moved to Paterson, N.J., in the 1970s, and first worked at a Woolworth's department store before becoming a cost accountant for General Electric Corp. She also had been a GE product model.

Breakfast may start off the day right, but for the Equal Justice Council of Maryland's Legal Aid Bureau, it was also the way to start off its 2000 Fund Campaign right. The Justice Council helps raise money for Legal Aid's mission of providing legal services to Maryland's poor. About 200 guests gathered at the Camden Yards Banquet Room to honor some of the council's big supporters, who helped collect more than $380,000 for agency programs in the past year. Among the attendees: Decatur H. Miller and Tom Bodie, Equal Justice Council co-chairs; Robert Kershaw, Catherine Wenzing and James Nolan Jr., council members; Wilhelm H. Joseph Jr., Legal Aid executive director; Warren S. Oliveri Jr., Legal Aid board chair; Ben Civiletti, board member; Chief Judge Robert M. Bell of the Maryland Court of Appeals; Alex Forger, New York attorney and keynote speaker; Pamila Brown, principal counsel with Maryland Department General Services; Genelle Watts, assistant counsel with McCormick & Co.; Gordon Cooley, general counsel with F&M Bancorp; Susan Erlichman, Maryland Legal Services deputy director; Paul Carlin, executive director of Maryland State Bar Association; and Earl Hunt, president of Hunt & Associates Inc.

The pro-Dream Act crowd, as indicated by recent letters printed in The Sun, frequently describes the in-state tuition debate in terms of fairness. Yet the reason that the pro-illegal immigrant crowd continues to see their Dream Act slipping away is due in no small measure to the fact that they really can't answer the fundamental fairness questions the legislation presents. For starters, it's certainly not fair to those immigrants who have been waiting to enter the country legally for Maryland to give any special treatment to those who jumped to the head of the line illegally.

ANNAPOLIS -- The Senate handed a major defeat to title companies yesterday by passing a bill that requires them to give up the interest they earn on their clients' trust accounts and send it directly into the coffers of Baltimore.The bill originally would have sent the money, between $3 million and $7 million a year, to the Maryland Legal Services Corp., which funds legal programs for the poor and disadvantaged.In a victory for advocates for the poor, however, the Senate voted 27-19 against a bill that would have stopped the sending of $500,000 to the Maryland Legal Services Corp.

The cash-strapped Maryland Legal Services Corp., the quasi-public state agency that finances legal help for the poor, received a $425,000 check yesterday through the efforts of a Washington law firm, the second-largest private gift in the agency's 21-year history. The agency, which scaled back its grants to legal aid groups last year, said the donation will help maintain and possibly boost funding this year. "This really is a godsend for us," Robert J. Rhudy, the agency's executive director, said yesterday at a ceremony at the Robert C. Murphy Courts of Appeal Building in Annapolis.

ANNAPOLIS -- State lawmakers will propose today that control over a growing pool of money that funds legal services for the poor should be shifted from a private-sector corporation to the state, with some of the money ending up in state coffers.The money -- $4.9 million last year -- is the interest law firms accrue on trust accounts set up for their clients. Since 1989, lawyers have been required to give the money, known as Interest on Lawyer Trust Accounts, or IOLTA, to the private, non-profit Maryland Legal Services Corp.

Advocates of legal aid for Maryland's poor are looking to the General Assembly for help in keeping their programs afloat in the wake of federal budget cuts that have reduced funding by millions of dollars.A bill filed yesterday in Annapolis would raise money for such programs, including Legal Aid and the House of Ruth, by collecting a surcharge when civil cases are filed in district and circuit courts across the state.The bill, sponsored by Del. Samuel I. "Sandy" Rosenberg, D-Baltimore, does not specify the amount of the extra charge, which would set by court officials.

ANNAPOLIS -- Legislation that would require title companies to give the state a significant chunk of their income got a major boost this week from a decision by a legal disciplinary board.Thanks to an opinion by the Maryland Attorney Grievance Commission,lawyers who set up title companies may keep the interest earned when they briefly hold their clients' money in trust accounts.The interest builds when a person buys a home and passes the purchase money first through the title company and then to the seller.

ANNAPOLIS -- Despite the threat of higher home closing costs, the General Assembly yesterday approved a bill that would require title companies to donate their escrow account interest to a new fund for affordable housing.The 81-53 vote by the House of Delegates sent Senate Bill 594 to the governor for his likely signature. And it ended a five-year battle between law firms and title companies, who sought to protect what they argue is their money.The money -- small amounts of interest earned when a title company holds a client's home purchase money in an escrow account -- will go to a fund to establish housing for the poor.

I just spent a wonderful day off in Delaware Park, playing in two poker tournaments, shooting craps and playing blackjack. I actually won a few bucks that I spent in tax-free Delaware. When I returned to Baltimore, I saw that the slots parlor in Ocean City would open soon. Every state around us has full casinos, and we are now getting slots. That is just what we need — another way to tax the poor and the uneducated. There is nothing more mindless than pulling handles all day long, and like the lottery, slots give the worst odds in the casino.

It's not every day you see the top judge in the state playing the role of party photographer. Robert Bell, chief judge of the Maryland Court of Appeals, snapped shots at the annual awards reception for the Maryland Legal Services Corp., which provides civil legal assistance to low-income Marylanders. This was an evening all about the giving of one's services. "This gives us a chance to get together with grantees, judges, legislators and people who do so many good things for people who need legal aid," said F. Vernon Boozer, Maryland Legal Services Corp.

I t's not every day you see the top judge in the state playing the role of party photographer. Robert Bell, chief judge of the Maryland Court of Appeals, snapped shots at the annual awards reception for the Maryland Legal Services Corp., which provides civil legal assistance to low-income Marylanders. This was an evening all about the giving of one's services. "This gives us a chance to get together with grantees, judges, legislators and people who do so many good things for people who need legal aid," said F. Vernon Boozer, Maryland Legal Services Corp.

Luther G. Blackiston Jr., an attorney whose career at the Maryland Legal Aid Bureau spanned 34 years, was found dead of an apparent heart attack Jan. 18 at his Fallston home. He was 58. Born in Crumpton on the Eastern Shore, he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from St. John's College in Annapolis and started work at the Legal Aid Bureau before his graduation from the University of Maryland School of Law. He was admitted to the Maryland Bar in 1972. Part of the senior management team for Legal Aid, he served as its director of law and technology and was considered an expert in elder law. Colleagues said he used technology to help deliver legal services to the needy.

City prosecutors aren't only ones who need a raise Kudos to The Sun for recognizing that prosecutors in the Baltimore state's attorney's office deserve pay parity with attorneys in the public defender's and attorney general's offices ("Priceless prosecutors," editorial, June 21). But another pillar of the legal community could also use a raise: Lawyers at the Maryland Legal Aid Bureau and other civil legal services groups that help the poor, the elderly, children and the disabled with their critical legal problems.

A judge in Indiana has issued a contempt citation and is levying a $1,000-an-hour fine against the owners of Rosecroft Raceway for violating a court order not to pursue a separate legal action in Maryland against a former business partner. Thomas Chuckas Jr., chief executive of Cloverleaf Enterprises, the company that owns the Prince George's County harness racing track, called the ruling by Marion County Superior Court Judge Thomas Carroll "outrageous." He said Cloverleaf has been treated unfairly by the court in Indiana in a legal dispute with its former partner, Centaur Rosecroft LLC. The former partner was incorporated in Maryland by the principals of an Indiana-based gambling company, Centaur, Inc. Centaur filed a lawsuit in the fall asking the Indiana court to block the track's owners from striking a new deal with any other potential buyer.

In what experts say is the most ambitious effort in the country to improve legal services for low- and moderate-income people, Maryland is pulling together an expansive network of resources to streamline access to the law and justice. With the help of a $1 million grant, the Maryland Legal Assistance Network (MLAN) is aiming to enhance the work being done by 28 organizations, law school clinics, private lawyers and the courts, by using a combination of technology, a statewide hot line and improved services.

The main funding source for Maryland's legal services to the poor has fallen on hard times, and advocates are preparing to seek unprecedented state financial help - even as they keep an eye on a legal challenge that threatens to cut off a main source of funding for such services nationwide. The Maryland Legal Services Corp. - which supports 28 organizations providing legal help to those with cases involving domestic abuse, landlord-tenant disputes and other issues - faces a $1 million budget shortfall because of slack interest on the accounts that help fund it. The state's chief judge is seeking a $1.2 million subsidy to close the gap in the organization's $7 million annual budget, and advocates are planning a strong push in the General Assembly.

If you're honoring folks who give a lot of their time to a volunteer effort, why not do it during the season of giving? So went the Annual Awards Reception for the Maryland Legal Services Corp., which helps fund 28 nonprofit groups that provide legal assistance to Maryland's poor. Corporation board member Doug Bregman says about 225 people gathered in the Radisson Plaza Lord Baltimore Hotel ballroom to honor Steve Sachs, Gregory L. Countess, Winnie Borden, Beverly Mondin-Vanderhaar, Diana L. Morris, Connie Kratovil Lavell, Herbert S. Garten, Jose A. Toro, Beins, Goldberg & Gleiberman, and the Maryland State Bar Association for outstanding service.