Mega law firm McKenna Long & Aldridge announced yesterday it has cut the starting salaries of its first-year lawyers by $20,000. (The original version of this post said: “to $20,000.” Now that really would have been news!) There has been a delay in reducing starting associate salaries even while these…
Lawyers handling wrongful death cases encounter an awful argument from defense lawyers in cases where the victim is 65 years-old and older: you have to discount the value of your claim because the victim was old, anyway. The argument is so callous no lawyer would directly make this argument to…
The New York Times has a good article today on Independent Medical Examination doctors, including a doctor referred to by New York injury lawyers as “Doctor Says-No.” We have several IME doctors in Maryland that must be related to him because they have the same last name. The New York…
They wrote an opinion of interest to attorneys who receive referrals from other Maryland lawyers in malpractice cases. This case involves a Maryland lawyer who referred a cancer misdiagnosis case involving an allegedly misread mammogram to a lawyer that handles medical malpractice cases, agreeing to a fee split. Before referring…
Maryland Senate Bill 468 passed today in the Maryland Senate. It increases – from $10,000 to $20,000 – the maximum amount in controversy in a civil action in which a party may not demand a jury trial. Defendants would only be able to “bump up” cases between $20,000 and $30,000…
Maryland’s nursing homes had an “off year” according to Jay Handcock’s blog for the Baltimore Sun. The Government Accountability Office reports that citations in Maryland for inflicting residents with “actual harm” or putting them in “immediate jeopardy” were given to 17% of Maryland’s 234 nursing homes last year. This is…
Bob Franklin, a well respected Maryland lawyer who defends trucking companies for Franklin & Prokopik, wrote an article on defendant truck accident cases advising defense lawyers on handling plaintiffs’ truck accident lawyers’ vicarious liability arguments entitled. “But I Didn’t Do It!” Expanding Theories of Vicarious Liability, 58 Fed’n Def. &…
There is a battle now in the Maryland state legislature about whether Maryland should increase the minimum jurisdictional amount before a defendant can remove a case from District Court to Circuit Court. Defense lawyers for State Farm and Allstate, the two largest auto insurance providers in Maryland, routinely “bump up”…
I recently read a closing argument in another lawyers’ medical malpractice case. In his final thoughts to the jury, he reminded the jurors of what I always remind jurors of when I’m delivering a closing: the memories of the victim will fade for you and for me, but this person…
On Monday, the Maryland Court of Special Appeals decided Allen v. Marriott Worldwide Corporation, a Montgomery County slip and fall on ice case. The case sends a clear message to most ice slip and fall cases will not get to a jury. [2019 Update: The court walked back this law…