Private Practice

The Court of Appeals is considering whether to disbar a lawyer for the city housing authority for failure to pay withholding taxes when she was in private practice.The lawyer, Sheila Brooks-Tahir, has worked as a litigator for the authority for six months. Before that, she was a contract employee of the city solicitor's office for a brief period.City officials declined to comment, other than to confirm Brooks-Tahir's employment.It is not clear whether they knew before hiring her of long-standing questions about management of her Salisbury law practice from 1988 to 1994.

Ten lawyers, including the county's state's attorney and a member of the Maryland House of Delegates, have applied for the vacancy on the Harford County Circuit Court. In addition, 20 lawyers have applied for the vacancy on the county's District Court bench, with six applying for both. The 10 applicants to replace recently retired Circuit Judge Emory A. Plitt Jr. are: • Joseph Ignatius Cassilly, Harford County State's Attorney since 1983; • Michael Gerard Comeau, a senior assistant attorney in the Harford County Law Department and a former state delegate; • Yolanda Lauranzon Curtin, a state administrative law judge and former Harford prosecutor; • Michael Hugh Andrew Daney, associate zoning hearing examiner for Harford County; • Howard Wayne Norman Jr., a member of the House of Delegates representing Northern Harford; • Steven J. Scheinin, a lawyer in private practice and previous judge applicant and candidate; • District Court Judge Victor Kuras Butanis, a district judge since 1996; • Melissa Lazarich Lambert, chief legal counsel to the Harford County Council and a former assistant state's attorney; • Kerwin Anthony Miller Sr., a deputy state's attorney for Cecil County; • Diane Adkins Tobin, a deputy state's attorney for Harford County.

We have just one question for Kim Y. Johnson, the Baltimore Police Department official who has been representing criminal suspects and shepherding clients through bankruptcy for years: How do you find time to defend alleged drug dealers, thieves and deadbeat debtors while doing the city's business? Last week, The Baltimore Sun's Justin Fenton reported that Ms. Johnson, who earned $85,000 in 2008 from her police job investigating racial discrimination complaints in the department, also has a private practice defending people charged with serious crimes by her police colleagues.

Dr. Bernard "Bernie" Kapiloff, a retired plastic surgeon who had also been the longtime publisher of the Montgomery County Sentinel as well as a civil rights activist and philanthropist, died Oct. 10 from complications of a stroke at Roland Park Place. The Homeland resident was 95. "Bernie was fiercely independent, engaged and very bright. He was interested in being out in the community and spoke his mind. He knew the facts," said U.S. Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin, a friend for more than 40 years.

The man who entered medicine "basically to treat people and to help solve their problems" is leaving administrative problem-solving at Springfield Hospital Center and returning to private practice.Dr. Bruce Hershfield, superintendent of the Sykesville hospital since 1986, eschews complacency and derives job satisfaction from challenges, often of his own making."Most of what you learn on a job, you learn the first year," he said. "After that, you polish."After six years of polishing, improving patient-to-staff ratios and adding innovative programs to the state's largest psychiatric hospital, he said, the time has come for a career change and a new challenge.

The man who entered medicine "basically to treat people and to help solve their problems" is leaving administrative problem-solving at Springfield Hospital Center and returning to private practice.Dr. Bruce Hershfield, superintendent of the Sykesville hospital since 1986, eschews complacency and derives job satisfaction from challenges, often of his own making."Most of what you learn on a job, you learn the first year," he said. "After that, you polish."After six years of polishing, improving patient-to-staff ratios and adding innovative programs to the state's largest psychiatric hospital, he said, the time has come for a career change and a new challenge.

Dr. Oscar Hartman, a retired Baltimore-area obstetrician and longtime Lutherville resident, died Oct. 28 of cancer at Heartland, a rehabilitation facility in Sarasota, Fla. He was 93. Dr. Hartman, the son of a baker and homemaker, was born and raised in Baltimore. He was a 1931 graduate of City College and earned a bachelor's degree in 1935 from the University of Maryland, College Park. After graduating in 1939 from the University of Maryland School of Medicine, he completed his internship and residency at Franklin Square Hospital, where he was chief of obstetrics and gynecology for two years.

Dr. Frank W. Davis Jr., a respected Baltimore cardiologist who managed to combine a private practice, research and teaching during his 50-year career, died Friday of complications from emphysema at his Owings Mills home. He was 85. Dr. Davis, the son of an oral surgeon and a homemaker, was born and raised in Asheville, N.C. After graduation from Edwards High School in Asheville, he earned his bachelor's and medical degrees from Duke University. In 1946, he came to Baltimore to complete his medical internship and residency in cardiology at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

A Maryland assistant attorney general has been disbarred for tax evasion. The state Attorney Grievance Commission could have suspended Anthony K. Waters but determined his case was so egregious that the only recourse was for his name to "be stricken from the rolls of those authorized to practice law in this State," according to the final order. Waters, who said he had no comment when reached by phone yesterday, had failed to file state income tax returns between 1990 and 1996, and failed to file federal income and withholding tax returns between 1990 and 1997.

When the Democratic Party asked Columbia attorney Sherae M. McNeal to run for judge of the Orphans' Court this year, someone probably should have mentioned that to hold the job, she would have to quit her law practice.But apparently party officials and McNeal didn't know that in Howard County, practicing attorneys can't serve as Orphans' Court judges, who are paid about $6,000 a year for their part-time work.Someone finally informed McNeal this month, a month after her election victory and shortly after her Dec. 2 swearing-in.

Morton A. Sacks, a retired trial lawyer and former Maryland assistant attorney general, died of heart disease Aug. 29 at Baltimore Washington Medical Center. The Linthicum resident, who lived for 40 years in Bolton Hill, was 74. Born in Baltimore and raised in Lochearn, he met his future wife, Marylou Botten, at Milford Mill Junior High School. "We sat next to each other in the eighth grade," she said. The couple went on to graduate from Milford Mill Senior High School in 1956.

As law firms across the country cut back, Offit Kurman has grown. Rapidly. The firm, founded in Towson 25 years ago, doubled its revenue from 2008 to 2011 — a period that included the worst-in-decades recession — and added dozens of employees as it expanded its reach across the Mid-Atlantic. Now Offit Kurman employs about 170 people and expects to keep growing, said Ted Offit, managing principal of the firm and one of its founders. A lawyer and certified public accountant, Offit, 56, lives in the Glyndon area of Baltimore County with his wife, Risa.

Dr. Edwin H. T. Besson, a retired pediatrician who was the former chairman of the St. Agnes Hospital pediatric department, died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease, Dec. 4 at his Ellicott City home. He was 85. In a memoir, he recalled that after his birth in Carbondale, Pa., he often moved with his family and wound up living in the small town of Stockton in Worcester County. His family had suffered economic hardship in the Depression and they lost their home.

Dr. Carol Cooper has taken an alternative path to healing the sick and the weary. A graduate of University of Maryland School of Medicine, Dr. Copper has been practicing family medicine for over 20 years. But sensing a frustration in her patients and a need to explore her interest in alternative medicine, Havre de Grace resident Dr. Cooper recently completed an additional 300 hours of training in acupuncture in order to narrow her field of practice to medical acupuncture. “About 15 years ago, I had a back problem and I went to a doctor who practiced acupuncture.

Stefanie F. Bergey, a child psychologist, died Nov. 9 of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease, at her Homeland residence. She was 62. Stefanie Friday Antonakos was born in Athens, and when she was a young child, she immigrated with her family to Morristown, N.J. After graduating from Morristown High School in 1967, she earned a degree in child psychology from Douglass College of Rutgers University in New Brunswick....

Dr. Jamshid Hamed, a retired internist whose specialty was rheumatology, died Nov. 8 of cancer at Gilchrist Hospice Care in Towson. He was 81. "Jim made no distinction between his patients and friends. He was a wonderfully caring doctor and a great diagnostician, and for years had been a prominent member of the Greater Baltimore Medical Center family," said Dr. Thomas F. Lansdale III, a Baltimore internist who cared for Dr. Hamed in his final illness. The son of a merchant and a homemaker, Dr. Hamed, who was known as "Jim," was born and raised in Smarkand, Uzbekistan, which is on the Silk Road, family members said.

Dr. Jamshid Hamed, a retired internist whose specialty was rheumatology, died Nov. 8 of cancer at Gilchrist Hospice Care in Towson. He was 81. "Jim made no distinction between his patients and friends. He was a wonderfully caring doctor and a great diagnostician, and for years had been a prominent member of the Greater Baltimore Medical Center family," said Dr. Thomas F. Lansdale III, a Baltimore internist who cared for Dr. Hamed in his final illness. The son of a merchant and a homemaker, Dr. Hamed, who was known as "Jim," was born and raised in Smarkand, Uzbekistan, which is on the Silk Road, family members said.