On the move – Legal edition

Posted: 7:00 pm Sun, June 6, 2010
By Daily Record Staff

Robert J. Zarbin, of The Jaklitsch Law Group, in Upper Marlboro, assumed the presidency of the Maryland Association for Justice on May 22 at the organization’s 57th annual dinner. He has served as chair of the association’s Workers’ Compensation Section and Legislative Committee. This month Zarbin also becomes president of the American Association for Justice’s Counsel of Presidents. Closer to home, he is a member of the Judicial Nominating Commission for Anne Arundel County, and serves on the Peer Review Committee for the Maryland Attorney Grievance Commission. Zarbin previously worked for Saiontz, Kirk and Miles, in Baltimore. The Jaklitsch Law Group also has offices in Annapolis, Waldorf and Prince Frederick.

Eleven employees of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, a Drug Enforcement Administration agent and the father of murdered carjacking victim Warren T. Fleming Jr. were honored recently with the office’s most prestigious awards in Baltimore. The Barnet D. Skolnik Award: Debra Dwyer, assistant U.S. attorney, and Kwame J. Manley, deputy chief, Violent Crime Section. Employee of the Year: Timothy Garrett. Pete Twardowicz Award: Mark Howard, deputy sheriff, St. Mary’s County Sheriff’s Office, and an unnamed Drug Enforcement Administration task force officer. Excellence in Civil Advocacy: Jason Medinger, assistant U.S. attorney. Excellence in Prosecution of Fraud: Jamie M. Bennett, assistant U.S. attorney. Excellence in Prosecution of Violent Crime: Michael C. Hanlon, chief, Violent Crime Section, and Christopher M. Mason, special assistant U.S. attorney. Excellence in Prosecution of Organized Crime: Barbara S. Skalla, assistant U.S. attorney. Excellence in Legal Support: Vanessa Davis, supervisory legal assistant. Outstanding Contributions to a Law Enforcement Initiative: Tamera L. Fine, assistant U.S. attorney. Carl S. Lackl Award: Wayne T. Fleming Sr.

Robert J. Zarbin, of The Jaklitsch Law Group, became president of the Maryland Association for Justice at the association’s 57th Annual President’s Dinner on May 22 in Baltimore. Other new officers are: Louise A. Lock, of Louise A. Lock, PA, president-elect; George S. Tolley III, of Dugan, Babij & Tolley, vice president; Laura G. Zois, of Miller & Zois, secretary; Lawrence S. Greenberg, of Greenberg Law Offices, treasurer; and David M. Kopstein, of Kopstein & Perilman, parliamentarian.

Dugan, Babij & Tolley, of Timonium, has received the Trial Lawyer of the Year Award from the Maryland Association for Justice in recognition of the efforts of the firm’s principal members, Henry E. Dugan Jr., Bruce J. Babij and George S. Tolley III, in representing Dylan McQuitty, who suffered significant neurologic injuries at birth in 1995. After many years of litigation, the Court of Appeals held last year in McQuitty v Spangler that the doctrine of Informed Consent in Maryland does not require that a physician’s course of care and treatment involve any “affirmative violation of the patients physical integrity” but, rather, that the physician’s duty to inform requires that the physician divulge all information that would be material to the patient’s decision about whether to submit to, or continue with, any medical treatment.

George Nemphos, Baltimore office managing partner of Duane Morris LLP, has been named chair of the firm’s worldwide corporate practice group. Nemphos helped to establish Duane Morris’ presence in Baltimore in January 2007 as one of four partners who joined the firm from DLA Piper.  He is a member of the firm’s national governing Partners Board. Nemphos represents private and public companies, venture capitalists and angel investors, with particular emphasis on private equity funds and deals.

Christopher Vaughn, an associate in DLA Piper’s corporate and securities practice in its Baltimore office, will receive a Maryland Pro Bono Service Award from the Pro Bono Resource Center of Maryland. The award will be presented on June 12 at the Maryland State Bar Association’s annual meeting. Vaughn has provided pro bono legal services to Catholic Relief Services, and assisted in the due diligence process and negotiations surrounding the pending merger of five foundations committed to protecting the Baltimore Harbor by making more efficient use of grant funds. He is also active in Maryland’s Mentoring Male Teens program. Vaughn concentrates his practice on international business transactions and private equity.

David M. Kochanski, shareholder at Shulman Rogers, of Potomac, has been elected to the Maryland State Bar Association’s Board of Governors for the 2010-2012 term. He will represent the state’s sixth district. Kochanski has spent the last 37 years as a commercial real estate lawyer. He regularly lectures on continuing legal education topics for and has been an instructor at Montgomery College and an adjunct professor at the University of Maryland. He is on the Legal Professionalism Faculty for the Maryland State Bar Association. Kochanski has been chair of the Maryland State Bar Real Property, Planning and Zoning Section and the Montgomery County Bar Real Estate Section. He is also a member of several standing committees of the American Bar Association Real Property Trust and Estate Law Section.

Robert R. Bowie Jr., a founding partner of Bowie & Jensen, of Baltimore, has been elected president of the Harvard Alumni Association. He will be a featured speaker May 26 at Harvard’s Senior Class Day as part of the university’s graduation activities. Bowie is the first vice president of the alumni association. He also is a former board member of the Harvard Club of Maryland; he has served as chair of its Schools and Scholarships Committee and is the founder of the HAA Early College Awareness Program. The program, for which he received an Excellence Merit Award for Baltimore County, reaches out to seventh- and eighth-grade students of less advantaged backgrounds, along with their parents or guardians. Bowie leads Bowie & Jensen’s litigation department.

Richard C. Burch, managing partner of Mudd, Harrison & Burch, of Towson, was recently named a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers.

Michelle N. Lipkowitz, an associate and member of McGuireWoods’ business and securities department in Baltimore, has been inducted as a Fellow of the Baltimore Bar Foundation. From 2002 to 2005 she was an associate with Gordon, Feinblatt, Rothman, Hoffberger & Hollander. Lipkowitz is a member of the Maryland Transportation Professional Services Selection Board and the Baltimore City Board of Municipal and Zoning Appeals.

Scott G. Wilcox has joined Whiteford, Taylor & Preston as Counsel in the Wilmington, Del., office. He focuses his practice in the area of general commercial litigation, handling real estate, zoning and land use, construction law and environmental matters. His practice also includes counseling clients with business litigation matters. Wilcox has been a First Assistant County Attorney for New Castle County, where his primary focus was acting as counsel for the Department of Land Use. He also provided legal guidance and representation to other county departments and served as a prosecutor in the State Attorney General’s Office Criminal Division.  Wilcox serves on the board of the Delaware chapter of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

Robert D. Clark has joined the health law group of the Washington, D.C., office of Ober|Kaler. Most recently, he was with Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovsky and Popeo, P.C., where he was the managing member of its national health law practice. He has also served as vice president and general counsel of Vitas Healthcare Corp., and in-house counsel at Manor Care Inc., Group Practice Affiliates Inc. and Greenspring Health Services Inc. Among his degrees is a B.A. from the University of Maryland.

Virginia B. Evans has joined the government investigations and white collar defense group of the Washington, D.C., office of Ober|Kaler as a principal. Before joining the firm, Evans was managing director of the health care practice of an international regulatory consulting and investigative firm. Earlier in her career, she led the mid-Atlantic health care forensic practice at a Big Four accounting firm. She serves as a compliance expert for a large pharmaceutical manufacturer under a Corporate Integrity Agreement working with the board. Evans spent 13 years with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland, including two years as chief of the civil division, where she managed the ACE/health care fraud unit and financial litigation section.

Frank H. Menaker has joined The McCammon Group. He remains Of Counsel at the Washington, D.C., office of DLA Piper. He previously was senior vice president and general counsel of Lockheed Martin Corp.

Paula M. Junghans, a partner in Zuckerman Spaeder’s Washington, D.C., office, received the 2010 Tax Excellence Award from the Taxation Section of the Maryland State Bar Association. Junghans has more than 30 years of experience in federal tax litigation and white-collar criminal matters. She is a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and the American College of Tax Counsel.

Mitzie V. Smith-Mack, of counsel in the real estate department at Ballard Spahr LLP, has been elected to the board of directors of the Housing and Development Law Institute. HDLI is a nonprofit organization created as a legal resource for the affordable and public housing industry. Smith-Mack is a member of Ballard Spahr’s housing group in Washington, which represents more than 60 housing authorities across the country.

Zuckerman Spaeder has been awarded the Pro Bono Law Firm of the Year Award among large firms by the District of Columbia Bar. In 2009 the firm helped an individual accused of capital murder avoid a death penalty charge, a Rwandan genocide survivor secure political asylum after he was tortured by government agents for testifying against those accused of murdering his family, early-child care providers who sought increases in child care subsidies, and grandmothers gain custody of their grandchildren.