The newly published 2018 Maryland Super Lawyers list names twelve attorneys from Shapiro Sher Guinot & Sandler. Among them are one attorney given a Top 10 Super Lawyer designation, two attorneys in the Top 100, and three “Rising Stars.”

Maryland Super Lawyers 2018 names the following Shapiro Sher attorneys in their respective practice areas:

• David B. Applefeld – Construction Litigation, Civil Litigation, Insurance Coverage
• William E. Carlson – Business/Corporate, Securities & Corporate Finance (Maryland Super Lawyers’ Top 100)
• Scott W. Foley – Banking, Creditor Debtor Rights
• Richard M. Goldberg – Bankruptcy, Business Litigation, Civil Litigation
• Ann Clary Gordon – Real Estate, Business/Corporate
• Eric R. Harlan – Business Litigation, Family Law, Employment & Labor
• Anastasia L. McCusker – Bankruptcy, Business Litigation (“Rising Star”)
• Joseph A. Pulver – Banking, Business Litigation, Real Estate, Creditor Debtor Rights (“Rising Star”)
• Paul Mark Sandler – General Litigation, Criminal Defense: White Collar, Business Litigation (Maryland Super Lawyers’ Top 10)
• Ronald M. Shapiro – Entertainment & Sports, Closely Held Business, Real Estate
• Joel I. Sher – Bankruptcy, Business Litigation (Maryland Super Lawyers’ Top 100)
• Daniel J. Zeller – Bankruptcy, Business Litigation, Creditor Debtor Rights (“Rising Star”)

Super Lawyers is a division of Thomson Reuters. It rates attorneys throughout the country using a proprietary combination of peer review, professional achievement tracking, and independent attorney research.

Shapiro Sher was founded in 1972 by Ronald M. Shapiro with the mission of providing outstanding legal counsel for Maryland businesses of all sizes. With offices in Baltimore and Washington D.C., the Firm is nationally recognized for its practices in business law, litigation, bankruptcy, and creditors’ rights. 

The Daily Record has selected Shapiro Sher Guinot & Sandler partner Renée Lane-Kunz to receive a 2017 Leadership in Law Award. Ms. Lane-Kunz is Shapiro Sher’s Chief Operating Officer and co-chair of the Firm’s Employment Law Group. 

Ms. Lane-Kunz is among 39 recipients of The Daily Record Leadership in Law honors this year. The newspaper launched the award program in 2001 as a way to recognize the career accomplishments, community service, and mentoring activities of members of Maryland’s legal community. 

The winners of this year’s awards will be honored at a Daily Record celebration event May 11 at the BWI Hilton. 

“For a few hours on Monday, the nine-member U.S. Supreme Court morphed into a three-member panel reenacting one of its earlier cases in the same Philadelphia courtroom where it was first argued in 1794.

Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. and Justices Stephen Breyer and Samuel Alito Jr. donned their black robes for a rare outside-the-Beltway sitting in Philadelphia’s Old City Hall, where the court convened sporadically as a six-member court from 1791 to 1800. As when it holds hearings in Washington, broadcast cameras were not allowed, and only a court photographer was allowed to take still photos.

The invitation-only event was part of the every-few-years exchange between U.S. and U.K. jurists sponsored by the American College of Trial Lawyers to “share experiences and keep current” on their common legal roots, as Roberts put it.

Four trial lawyers—William Hangley, Paul Sandler, Linda Hoffa and Alfred Putnam Jr.—argued the case before the three justices, using more colorful and forceful styles than most high court advocates do, and sometimes talking over a justice, a no-no at the modern-day court.

The case the justices re-enacted was Georgia v. Brailsford, a quirky dispute that has been billed as the only reported Supreme Court case in which the court itself held a jury trial—though the court convened other juries in unreported cases through the end of the eighteenth century. Scholars Charles Alan Wright and Arthur Miller wrote in their 2013 Federal Practice and Procedure text that “the prospect of a jury trial conducted by nine justices at the expense of other cases is appalling.”

The oddity of the case did give British jurists a role to play on Monday—as the jurors who decided the case based on the advice of then-Chief Justice John Jay. Among them were Lord Jonathan Mance and Lord Robert Reed of the United Kingdom Supreme Court.

The American College of Trial Lawyers, an elite litigation society, recruited four fellows to play the advocates. Hangley is a founder of Philadelphia’s Hangley Aronchick Segal Pudlin & Schiller. Hoffa is a partner at Dilworth Paxson and chairs the firm’s white-collar defense group. Putnam is a partner and former chairman of Drinker Biddle. Sandler is a Baltimore partner at Shapiro Sher and chair of the firm’s litigation group.”

For the full article on Law.com, see “Supreme Court Justices Unite with British Visitors for Mock Trial” by Tony Mauro.

Chair of the Litigation Group, Paul Sandler, represented Oregon Grille in a successful legal battle.

“The Oregon Grille will keep the majority of its paved parking lot after a Baltimore County judge declined to order the asphalt be replaced with a permeable surface, potentially ending a six-year legal battle.”

For the full story, read the Daily Record’s article “Baltimore Co. restaurant to keep parking lot following ruling” by Heather Cobun.