Earlier this month in this space, we noted how the bar exam results had been released. At the time, all that was available was a four-digit ID number.

Now, however, we have the full list of 462 names from the State Board of Law Examiners, which was also published in Tuesday’s paper.

Congratulations to Maryland’s newest lawyers!

I don’t know much about family law, but I do know a good double entendre when I hear one. And there were plenty heard Friday during the Family and Juvenile Law Section’s program at the Maryland State Bar Association’s Annual Meeting in Ocean City.

The theme for the session was exploring custody issues through parodies of the “Real Housewives” reality TV series. Only these episodes took place in Hagerstown, Dundalk and Salisbury, the latter of which featured the man pictured wearing a chicken on his head (naturally).

Each sketch featured some not-for-courtroom words, caricatures, some risque dialogue and, particularly in the case of the Dundalk sketch, some great accents.

(I filmed the two Hagerstown sketches as well as the Dundalk scene. Apologies for the video and audio quality, but I hope you can get the gist.)

The sketches were followed by a brief discussion by “erudite panel members” (really, that’s what it says in the program) on issues raised in the sketches. Here’s what I gleaned from the panel:

If a custody case involves the possibility of a child moving, the lawyer should remember the child “is going to lose one of their parents,” said Keith N. Schiszik of Day & Schiszik in Frederick. “You have to look very-fact specific as to how the kid is going to be hurt or not.”

When it comes to comity and where cases should be tried, the “good manners rule” should be followed, said Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge Cynthia Callahan.

“If they did it right in [another] state, we’re not going to run them over,” she said.

Judges do pick up the phone and talk about who should hear the case, according to Court of Special Appeals Judge Patrick L. Woodward.

“Most judges are practical. [They think,]‘One less case in my court is better,’” he said.

When working on custody agreements, Schiszik has made it practice to include a clause seeking the status quo in the child’s school, medical providers and religious activities unless both parties agree to a change.

The panel, plus the lawyers in attendance, all agreed the longer a lawyer waits to seek an emergency hearing, the less of an “emergency” it appears to be to the judge.

Not the judge in the photo, however. I really just wanted to share with you the sartorial splendor of Chief Judge Robert M. Bell on Thursday morning during the reception for new judges at the MSBA’s Annual meeting in Ocean City. (He wore a hat, he said, in honor of outgoing MSBA President Henry Dugan).

Four other judges and people involved in the judicial nominating process talked judicial elections in a session called “So you want to be a judge?”

Ted Staples, the panel moderator and co-chair of the MSBA’s Judicial Appointments Committee, said the real possibility of having to campaign “has got to be at the top of your list” when considering if you want a seat on the circuit court.

Montgomery County Administrative Judge John W. Debelius had to run in 2002 after just a year on the bench. He and his fellow sitting judges were out every night “campaigning,”meaning all they could really do was show up at events.

Debelius said the key is to be involved in the community to build up support.

“The only way to carry off an election is to have people,” he said, adding the sitting judges, with the help of the Montgomery County Bar, were able to have supporters at every polling place in the county and win their elections.

Despite the criticism, efforts to abolish judicial elections are “almost going backwards,” according to Richard Montgomery, MSBA’s legislative director for nine years.

“It’s going to take a constitutional amendment,” added Andy Radding, who has served on several judicial nominating commissions. “I don’t think [the General Assembly] has the guts.”

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Lots of options during the first educational session at the Maryland State Bar Association’s Annual Meeting in Ocean City. But, this being a blog, I felt I would not have been doing my duty if I did not attend the session on technology.

There was lots of talk of gadgets (Livescribe smart pens), apps (FastCase, Clio) and social media at the session, sponsored by the Solo and Small Firm Practice Section.

The big takeaway from the speakers was to embrace the technology. One audience member asked Hughie Hunt, a presenter, how secure cloud-based case management is.

“That’s a very 1980s question,” Hunt replied to laughter. “How secure is anything?”

The audience skewed older, many taking notes with pen and paper (although there were a few iPads in the crowd). So there was a lot of Tech 101. Dropbox, for example, was a “bigger and dumber version – in a good way” of Evernote for storing and sharing files, said presenter Bruce Godfrey.

There were also plenty of reminders that new technology doesn’t mean you can forget old ethics.

“FindLaw made me do it is not a defense” before the Attorney Grievance Commission, Godfrey said. “If you delegate marketing, you delegate ethics.”

Godfrey was also skeptical of lawyers marketing themselves online.

“We’re not cans of soup,” he said. “Our brand is our name on our letterhead.”

But that doesn’t mean you can’t make a name for yourself in social media, according to presenter (and Generation J.D.’s own) Heather Pruger.

Setting up a Facebook page, Twitter account or LinkedIn profile is OK, she said, but being engaged is a better way to enhance and expand your professional network and reputation.

“Social media is very much a two-, three-, four- and five-way street,” Pruger said.

The standard warnings you’ve probably heard a million times already still apply — don’t mix professional and personal conduct in social media and don’t do advise your client to do anything online you wouldn’t advise them to do in the real world. Pruger told the story of one lawyer fined $700,000 for advising a client to delete her Facebook profile during litigation.

Pruger recommended lawyers advise clients to stay off social media during litigation “unless they have a really good reason not to.”

Lawyers across the country have been talking about New York’s new mandate requiring those seeking to join the bar to complete 50 hours of pro bono work.

New York will be the first state to institute such a requirement, which will take effect starting next year. New York Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman announced the requirement May 1.

Since then, lawyers have been discussing the pros and cons of the rule. Some say it won’t do anything to help needy clients and unnecessarily burden incoming lawyers. Others contend it will turn new lawyers on to pro bono service.

Bloomberg BNA asked lawyers around the country what they think.

Ben Trachtenberg, professor at the University of Missouri School of Law: “While I completely appreciate the motive behind Chief Judge Lippman’s plan, and there’s a tremendous access to justice problem, I don’t think this is a particularly effective or fair way to solve the problem.”

Michael Millemann, professor at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law: Chief Judge Lippman’s decision to require 50 hours of pro bono service for admission to the bar is a good step in the right direction.”

Robert N. Weiner, partner, Arnold & Porter in Washington, D.C.: “The issue is whether there will be enough resources to ensure that the people doing the pro bono are getting supervised, and getting to represent the right clients, and actually serving their clients The existing infrastructure will need to be supplemented dramatically to have the capacity to accommodate all this pro bono service.”

Questions remain about the implementation and organization of the requirement (some lawyers even want to extend the rule to existing lawyers) and the New York State Bar Association has created a task force to address the issue. What impact New York’s move will have on other states also remains to be seen.

Do you think Maryland should make pro bono work a prerequisite for admission to the bar?

Add the Maryland State Bar Association’s Board of Governors to the list of organizations supporting same-sex marriage in Maryland.

The Board on Tuesday “voted by an overwhelming majority” to support S.B. 241, which will be taken up by the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee on Jan. 31. It was recommended by the MSBA’s Standing Committee on Laws and also has the backing of the Young Lawyers, Family and Juvenile Law, Elder Law, Estates and Trusts, Immigration and Delivery Services sections.

“I could not be prouder of our endorsement, which while protective of religious sensibilities and prerogatives, clearly and emphatically extends those civil rights embodied in our fundamental belief that ‘all men are created equal’ — and not simply ‘all heterosexual persons are created equal’ — to our entire citizenry,” said MSBA President Henry E. Dugan Jr. in a statement.

Maryland would become the seventh jurisdiction allowing same-sex marriage and lawmakers in several other states are also debating the issue. The Washington state Legislature is poised to pass its version of the bill.

Maryland has a “history of non-religious civil marriages that is and has been distinct and entirely separate from religious marriages, and this bill pertains exclusively to these civil marriages and the extensive civil rights that arise from those civil marriages,” Dugan said. “It is fair and just to all while injuring none.”

Have you ever wondered what happens to Maryland State Bar Association presidents after their one-year terms expire?

Well, MSBA Immediate Past President Thomas D. Murphy’s fate was to wind up on NBC’s Today Show in a news piece about Robyn Gardner, a Frederick woman missing in Aruba, and Gary Giordano, her traveling companion being held there in connection with her disappearance.

Murphy told the morning show, in an item aired this morning, that he represented a company Giordano sued for breach of contract. The company’s defense was that Giordano had forged a name on the contract.

“He has the capability to create a lie,  live the lie and try to make everyone else believe his lie,” Murphy told the show.

Giordano has said Gardner went missing when they went snorkeling and that he had nothing to do with her disappearance.

But Murphy cast doubt on that explanation in recounting what he heard about Giordano while investigating him with regard to the breach-of-contrast suit he eventually dropped.

“He doesn’t go in a swimming pool,” said Murphy, of Murphy & Mood PC in Rockville. “He doesn’t go in the ocean because he wears a toupee and he doesn’t get it wet.”

Murphy said of his Today show appearance that “I really think it’s my obligation, when asked, to share with people the discoveries I made about this guy’s ability … to create a lie and continue it.”

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.”

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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Well, this could get awkward.

Alison Asti, who filed Monday to run for a seat on the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County, is a past president of the Maryland State Bar Association. So, do you think she can count on the MSBA’s endorsement?

Not likely.

The MSBA’s longstanding policy is to endorse the sitting judges, and a vote for Asti would be a vote to unseat Judge Ronald H. Jarashow (who joined the court on March 1) or Judge Laura S. Kiessling (Feb. 19).

Bet that next Board of Governors’ meeting will be fun, won’t it?

I should mention that Asti also chairs The Daily Record’s independent Editorial Advisory Board, but this paper has a foolproof way of dealing with endorsements. We don’t make them.