Semmes

InsuranceJoyce N. Collett has been appointed office supervisor for the Columbia office of Canada Life Assurance Co. Previously she was a supervisor at Chevy Chase Federal Savings Bank in Laurel.Bryn Mawr Rehab of Malvern, Pa., has appointed Beverly A. Canatella as client representative. Her territory is Maryland, Delaware and Virginia. Her duties including representing the company in the work of the Maryland General-Bryn Mawr Rehab Center in Baltimore. In this capacity she works with brain injured and orthopedic patients.

Geoffrey S. Mitchell, who will become managing partner of th law firm of Semmes, Bowen & Semmes March 1, comes to the post with a long list of accomplishments on his resume. But he seems most proud of an accomplishment that happened long before he earned honors as a lawyer.For a year after he graduated from Virginia Military Institute in 1962, Mr. Mitchell, a native of Middlesboro, Ky., taught English grammar and literature to high school students in a tiny school in the poor, tobacco-farming region of Lincoln County, Kentucky.

On November 26, 2005 FRANK SHRIVER JONES beloved husband of Lois Lilly Jones; dear father of Michele J. Naish, Frank S. Jones, Jr., Marsha J. Chodnicki and Hilary J. O'Connor; dear grandfather of Jake and Elizabeth Naish, Caroline Jones, Winston Chodnicki and Grace and Paul O'Connor; devoted brother of Helen J. Kramp, T. Carbery Jones, Lassie J. Wiedmann, Anne Lewis Klinefelter and R. Semmes Jones. Friends may call at the family owned Mitchell-Wiedefeld Funeral Home, Inc., 6500 York Road (at Overbrook)

American Joe Miedusiewski has not held elective office since 1995, but he has never really left Annapolis either. He's a lobbyist and marketer for the Baltimore law firm of Semmes, Bowen & Semmes. At 57, the former delegate and state senator from Canton is now a man to see for insider knowledge of the legislative process. "I'm working for my clients these days from dawn to dusk," he said yesterday as he was about to go into the Senate committee hearing on a proposal for a liquefied natural gas port at Sparrows Point.

Lawrence PerinLawyer, veteranLawrence Perin, retired lawyer, World War II combat veteran and ardent supporter of the downtown renaissance of his native Baltimore, died Friday at his Calvert Street home after a long bout with cancer.A descendant of early leaders of the city and state, Mr. Perin was born 88 years ago in a family home in the 1000 block of N. Charles St., two blocks west of the house in which he died.Mr. Perin and his wife, the former Margaret Vogel, bought their North Calvert Street house in 1963, in a reversal of a trend among their friends who moved from the city to the suburbs,The house has been considered one of the residential showplaces of the Mount Vernon area since the couple bought it.They moved there after 13 years of apartment-living on nearby Read Street.

From his 16th-floor office on South Pratt Street, Cleaveland Miller enjoys a splendid view of Oriole Park at Camden Yards, but it's a pleasure he no longer takes for granted.As managing partner of Semmes, Bowen and Semmes, Mr. Miller knows his clients are more impressed with bottom lines than baselines. For this and other reasons, he recently presided over a painful downsizing, giving up space and generally re-engineering or right-sizing his old-line Baltimore firm.Semmes avoided capsizing, in part, because it was not the first in Baltimore to find itself threatened by an unprecedented array of economic forces: the collapse of commercial real estate, the decampment of banking and other business to other cities, the lingering recession, demanding clients in search of the best for less and start-up competitors able to offer lower fees via technology and modest space with no view.

Retired U.S. District Judge Norman P. Ramsey, a Baltimore lawyer who had been a confidant of Maryland political leaders and a president of the city's school and fire boards, died of a heart attack yesterday at Union Memorial Hospital.Judge Ramsey, 70, had been hospitalized since suffering an earlier heart attack April 10.He served 11 years on the federal bench before his semiretirement as a senior judge in 1991. Just six months ago, he had rejoined the Baltimore law firm of Semmes, Bowen & Semmes, where he had been chairman before his judicial appointment.

Retired U.S. District Judge Norman P. Ramsey, a Baltimore lawyer who had been a confidant of Maryland political leaders and a president of the city's school and fire boards, died of a heart attack yesterday at Union Memorial Hospital.Judge Ramsey, 70, had been hospitalized since suffering an earlier heart attack April 10.He served 11 years on the federal bench before his semi-retirement as a senior judge in 1991. Just six months ago, he had rejoined the Baltimore law firm of Semmes, Bowen & Semmes, where he had been chairman before his judicial appointment.

Bradley Tyler Johnson Mettee Jr., who practiced law in Baltimore for nearly seven decades, died Wednesday of heart failure at Charlestown Retirement Community. The former Catonsville resident was 93. Born in Baltimore and raised in Highlandtown, he attended City College but spent his last semester helping to support his family. He passed a high school equivalency exam in 1928. While working as an office boy for the downtown Baltimore legal firm of Semmes, Bowen & Semmes, Mr. Mettee earned a degree from the University of Baltimore Law School in 1931 and passed the bar later that year.

More than half of the 167 students who received diplomas from Villa Julie College yesterday aren't worried about the sparse job market. Many already have jobs or are going on to graduate school."