The seven judges on Maryland’s top court were ready to hear Timothy S. Gordon explain to them why he should not be disbarred for misuse of escrow funds.

But in an unusual move, Gordon announced to the Court of Appeals that “I wish at this time to consent to the relief sought [by Bar Counsel] and that I be disbarred.”

Attorneys who consent to having their law licenses pulled generally do so much earlier in the Attorney Grievance Commission’s disciplinary process, thus saving them the burden of paying Bar Counsel’s court and investigative costs.

The Court of Appeals, in its Monday order disbarring Gordon, also ordered him to pay Bar Counsel’s costs of $1,200.

“I was as surprised as anybody else,” Court of Appeals Judge Glenn T. Harrell Jr. said Tuesday of Gordon’s Sept. 7 announcement in open court. “This was unusual in that the denouement did not occur until the day of oral argument.”

Gordon, who was a Hagerstown solo practitioner, could not be reached for comment.

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Court of Appeals Judge Joseph F. Murphy Jr. was in perhaps the last place a person would want to be when the earthquake hit yesterday — in surgery to remove a blockage in a carotid artery.

Fortunately,  the tremors did not sway the hands of his surgeon, Murphy said by telephone from his hospital bed this morning. Murphy said he expects to be released this afternoon from St. Joseph Medical Center in Towson.

“They discovered it during an annual physical,” Murphy said of the blockage. “My carotid artery had narrowed to the point it had to be cleaned out but fortunately all went well.”

Murphy, 67, said he will be on the bench Wednesday, when the Court of Appeals begins its 2011-2012 term. However, Murphy — as he announced earlier this year — will retire from the bench Sept. 30 to join the law firm Silverman, Thompson, Slutkin & White LLC in Baltimore, where his daughter Erin is an associate.

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At Thursday’s “Are you smarter than a law clerk?” session at the MSBA conference in Ocean City, Court of Appeals Judge Lynne A. Battaglia’s law clerks proved that they are pretty darn smart.

They answered all but one question correctly. Even the one they got wrong they originally got right; they just waffled in the end and answered “yes” instead of “it depends.”

Playing the role of Vanna White, Battaglia (pronounced the Italian way, with no hard “g” sound as she informed the crowd) showed off towels and mugs stamped “Smarter Than A Law Clerk.” Panelist James Archibald of Venable LLP in Baltimore provided the prizes.

Lunch was provided by panelist Paul Mark Sandler, name partner of the Baltimore firm Shapiro Sher Guinot & Sandler. Hilariously grouchy comments provided by the third panelist, retired Baltimore County Circuit Judge John Fader II, who said every time he attends the MSBA conference he sees people who don’t need to be there and then returns to the courtroom and sees all of the attorneys who should have gone.

The session often felt like comedy hour, with audience members yelling out to Battaglia, “What would the Court of Appeals say?” She demurred, saying, “You know I never give out advisory opinions.”

Sandler playfully tangled with Battaglia over her decision in Griffin v. State this year that left the tech-loving Sandler disappointed.

He also got into it with Fader over a British murder case from the 1800s that led to attorneys being allowed to hear confessions from their clients and then turn around and cross-examine other suspects on the stand to lead jurors to believe that the other suspect was the murderer. Fader said he didn’t like that ruling and that it shouldn’t be the law.

“Everybody’s wrong,” Fader said, “except for the people who believe the way I do.”

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Attorneys have been telling me — on deep background — that they are still waiting for the Maryland Court of Appeals to render decisions in cases they or their law partners argued years ago before the high court.

The calls from these lawyers have come in response to The Daily Record article last Thursday that the court had unanimously granted a convicted drug dealer a new trial more than 2-1/2 years after his appeal had been argued on Oct. 6. 2008, during which time he remained in prison. Attorneys quoted in that article said such delays were unusual but not unheard of.

The incoming calls indicate that the long time lapse between argument and decision might not be that unusual.

Do any of you have any long-pending cases before the Court of Appeals?

Please call me at 443-524-8162 or email me at Steve.Lash@TheDailyRecord.com.

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Maryland attorneys who oppose a proposed requirement that they take continuing legal education courses might find kinship with Louisiana judges.

A proposed resolution in the Louisiana legislature would urge the state Supreme Court to develop a mandatory CLE course on family law for all of the state’s judges. The proposal states that nearly every legislator has received ”numerous phone calls, e-mails, and letters from constituents complaining about judicial application of laws on child custody and child support.”

Louisiana House Concurrrent Resolution No. 79 adds that “great confusion” continues to exist in the state judiciary fully 17 years after the state’s most recent change in child-custody laws and following recent alterations to the state’s child-support guidelines.

“[N]o other area of the law touches … citizens, including the children of our constituents, more intimately, directly, and often painfully, than the law of custody and child support,” the resolution notes. The legislature “desires that all members of the judiciary, not just the family and juvenile court judges, be apprised of the current status of all Louisiana laws, particularly those affecting the children of our state.”

The resolution, which the Louisiana House approved this month, awaits action by the state Senate.

Maryland judges are required to take 10 hours of CLE  courses annually. The state’s top court, the Court of Appeals, has not set a date for voting on a controversial proposal to require that Maryland attorneys also take 10 hours of CLE per year.

Is mandatory CLE for Maryland attorneys a good idea?

From our Generation J.D. blog: Mandatory CLE in Maryland?

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As one of our website commenters noted this week, who hasn’t wanted to stick it to the man? Many people equate beating a traffic ticket with just that, and James Liskow’s story of finding a typo in a 5-year-old statute struck a chord with Daily Record readers, making it the most-read story this week by the paper’s legal affairs reporting team.

1. Speed camera ticket tossed over typo in Md. law – by Danny Jacobs
James Liskow beat his speed camera ticket literally by a letter in the law.

2. Md. disbars estate-planning lawyer over forgeries – by Danielle Ulman
The state’s top court has disbarred a Virginia lawyer also admitted to practice in Maryland after he allowed a woman to forge her terminally ill mother’s signature on estate documents.

3. Jolivet’s son convicted of theft, plans appeal – by Brendan Kearney
The son of Maryland Minority Contractors Association President Arnold M. Jolivet has been convicted of theft for charging more than $4,000 in car rental bills over several months to his state-issued credit card.

4. Top court sides with trial lawyer in separate cases decided on same day – by Danielle Ulman
Workdays don’t get much better than the one criminal lawyer Andrew V. Jezic had last Tuesday.

5. Judge acquits 3rd Baltimore officer of misconduct – Brendan Kearney
In his first trial as Baltimore City state’s attorney, Gregg L. Bernstein convinced the jury but not the judge.

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Verdicts, settlements and a big-ticket donation dominated the legal news this week. Here are the most-read stories by members of The Daily Record’s legal affairs reporting team.

1. Lockheed’s loss was the Maryland State Law Library’s gain – by Steve Lash
Bernice G. Bernstein began her career before Maryland had a state law library — or an intermediate appellate court.

2. Walk-out earns Frederick lawyer 60-day suspension – by Barbara Grzincic
An attorney who walked out of district court after a judge refused to put his client’s case on the stet docket will be suspended from the practice of law for 60 days, the state’s highest court has held.

3. Baltimore can proceed with suit against Wells Fargo – by Brendan Kearney
It took more than three years and three major edits, but Baltimore’s mortgage discrimination lawsuit against banking giant Wells Fargo has finally survived a defense motion to dismiss the case.

4. Lawyer, child win $3M verdict against police – by Danielle Ulman
The jury found officers Patricia A. Poulos and Shon P. Barr violated the First and Fourth Amendment rights of William E. Wallace III and his daughter Georgiana Wallace, who was 3 years old at the time of the incident in December 2007.

5. UMd. School of Law receives $30 million donation – by Danny Jacobs
The $30 million buzzword floating around the University of Maryland School of Law on Monday was “transformative.” News of the W.P. Carey Foundation’s record gift made an immediate impact — the school has officially changed its name to the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law.

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Good morning. Here’s all the legal Web news that’s fit to re-post:

• Judge M. Blane Michael, of the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, has died.
• An opinion from Maryland’s top court last week ruling that signatures on petitions need not be legible, could trigger a spate of new ballot initiatives come 2012.
• A gender identity bill has advanced in the House.
• 7th Circuit serves up every lawyer’s worst nightmare.
• Warning: beware of flawed statistics.
• In a Harry Potter-esque twist, one of the judge’s portraits in a Baltimore County court is haunted. No sign of a Nearly-Headless Nick sighting, though.
• Rocker Bret Michaels is suing CBS and organizers of the Tony Awards, claiming that a set piece that hit his head during the awards show in 2009 caused his brain hemorrhage.

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Maryland State Bar Association Thomas D. Murphy urged a House panel this week to reject legislation that would require any unspent annual revenue of the Attorney Grievance Commission to go to the state’s general fund rather than remain with the disciplinary body.

The AGC receives its funding from an annual court-ordered assessment on attorneys that is earmarked for oversight of the legal profession, Murphy told the House Judiciary Committee. The funds are not intended for the general use of the state and thus should not go to the general fund, he added.

“We Maryland lawyers paid our money to that [AGC] fund,” said Murphy, of Murphy & Mood PC in Rockville. The money “should be spent for the purpose we wrote our checks,” he added.

Murphy testified against House Bill 765, which would require AGC’s $7.85 million surplus as of last June 30 to go to the state treasury, as well as any future annual surpluses. The commission anticipates a $9 million surplus as of next June 30.

Del. Frank M. Conaway Jr., the bill’s chief sponsor, told the committee that Maryland must find ways to “beef’ up its revenue. Transferring AGC’s unspent money to the general fund would generate “$9 million worth of the beef,” said Conaway, D-Baltimore City.

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During this holiday season, Marylanders can perhaps rejoice in the fact their top court is a “point of light” and not a “judicial hellhole,” according to a national organization that seeks to rein in what it considers runaway jury awards.

In its annual report, the American Tort Reform Association praises the Maryland Court of Appeals for its Sept. 24 decision upholding the state’s statutory cap on noneconomic damages. By contrast, ATRA scorns the Illinois and Georgia supreme courts for striking down their state laws limiting awards for pain and suffering.

In contrast to the “reasonableness” of Maryland’s high court, justices in those two “judicial hellholes” replaced “the policy judgments of elected legislators and governors with their own,” ATRA’s report says.

The Maryland Court of Appeals, in DRD Pool Service Inc. v. Freed, said the state legislature had a”rational basis” for enacting the cap on noneconomic damages. The General Assembly limited awards for pain and suffering to achieve the “legitimate legislative objective” of keeping insurance costs down for companies and individuals, as the cap enables insurers to better predict their financial exposure in litigation, the court said.

“In our view, the cap continues to serve a legitimate government purpose,” Judge Clayton Greene Jr. wrote for the court’s 6-judge majority.

Judge Joseph F. Murphy Jr., the sole dissenter, argued for a stricter standard. He said the cap’s defenders should have to show that it is substantially related to an important legislative objective.

Maryland’s noneconomic damages cap, which increases by $15,000 every Oct. 1, is currently $740,000.

Do you regard the court’s decision as a point of light?

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