Commercial Litigation Recent Successes:
Avoidance Strategies
Fight and Win
Ground-breaking Cases
Commercial Litigation
Nobody 'likes' litigation. It can be a huge financial drain, but any business could be faced with certain problems that leave no choice.
Ideally, a business should practice avoidance strategies, but if it is too late it is then time to fight and win. We have experience and expertise, even to the point where we can teach other professionals and achieve success in ground-breaking cases. top
Avoidance strategies
Some successful business people know how to negotiate their way out of a difficult situation, so they don't need a lawyer, right? Wrong.
Compromises made without knowing options or rights usually result in bad solutions.
How bad can the solution be? A business might have no idea how bad the solution is until things have deteriorated so far that lawyer involvement cannot be avoided - that is, when a suit is filed or imminent.
The simple fact is that legal expenses are best spent sooner, rather than later, through litigation consulting on avoidance strategies.
We can prepare your people and your documentation and sometimes we can diffuse a potential suit before it happens.
Perhaps we can employ stealth tactics while staying in the background, which the adverse party (often not represented at that point) cannot recognize or guard against. Top
Fight and Win
If it is too late for avoidance strategies and someone has already been sued or must sue immediately to protect rights and safeguard options it is time to fight and win.
Swift resolution is the key. Only one side can have momentum and we will always do what is needed to be that side.
Some of our litigators have extensive experience in emergency pre-trial measures, where 'short fuse' preparation is critical, such as:
- Injunctions
- Restraining orders
- Pre-judgment attachments and liens
- Receiverships in complex commercial and real-estate services
Seize the momentum as soon as we can and maintain it so we direct the case.
Flush the opposition with resolution alternatives - a 'push and negotiate' strategy usually resolves the case on the best available terms and at the lowest cost.
Experience and expertise
Having good trial lawyers and being good in court is not enough any more.
Modern lawyers need to be experts in the law in which they practice and know the nuances of particular courts - Cases move fast and there is not enough time for a good trial strategist to learn the underlying law applicable to a particular case.
The Commercial Litigation department has over 20 attorneys, specially chosen based on background and experience, from the following areas:
- Federal Trade Commission
- US Army JAG Corp
- US Department of Justice
- US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
- Judicial and administrative clerkships including the Supreme Court of the United States (Justices Douglas and Brennan)
- Numerous downtown law firms
Our lawyers have tried matters in numerous federal and state courts, so a very specialized group hits the ground running. Whatever the case and whatever the point of our involvement we have the right team. The only learning curve is the time it takes to get to know the specific facts of your case.
You get speed, efficiency and value for money.
We Teach Other Professionals
It is nice to be able to say your lawyer' wrote the book' on the subject involved in your case.
At Shulman Rogers it is quite possible that your litigator wrote the book, taught the class, wrote the article and even helped write a specific law.
You might even find that your litigator instructed the opposing lawyer, or better still, the judge that is hearing your case.
We don't spend our time learning while you are paying. We not only know our subjects cold, but we teach other businessmen, lawyers and even judges.
Our areas of experience include:
- Construction
- Builder/developer
- Leasing and landlord/tenant
- Creditors rights and business reorganizations
- RICO
- Brokerage
- Receiverships and bankruptcies
- Guardianship
- Trusts and estates
- Intellectual property
- Government contracts
- Telecommunications
- Collective-bargaining negotiation and general employment matters
- Trade secrets and unfair competition
- ERISA
- Trade Associations
- Antitrust
- Trade Regulation
We frequently speak at seminars, corporate-training programs, continuing-legal-education courses, regional trade association lunches and many other events.
We serve on commissions, committees or in administrative roles on the state bar, government, bar associations or licensing boards. Some activities include:
- An appointment by the governor of Maryland to serve as on a commission to rewrite Maryland's landlord/tenant law
- An appointment by the governor of Maryland to serve as a trustee for the Chesapeake Bay Trust, a multi-million dollar state-created trust dedicated to supplying grants for education about and the rehabilitation of the Chesapeake Bay
- Participation in a recent legal training session for new judges at the Judicial Institute in Annapolis, Maryland, on procedures and policies related to guardianship law in the State of Maryland
- A request from the Virginia State Bar to prepare a chapter for its Commercial Real Estate Transactions Continuing Education Manual on the duties, obligations and rights of real-estate brokers and agents in Virginia
- Being an instructor for the Maryland State Bar Association on "Professionalism"
- Being an instructor with the Maryland Institute for Continuing Legal Education
- Being an instructor for real-estate-brokerage-license re-certification in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia
- An appointment to the Inquiry Committee of the Maryland Attorney Grievance Commission
- Being a founding director and past President of the Bankruptcy Bar Association of the District of Maryland
- Being a member on the Board of Appeals for the City of Rockville, Maryland
- Being an instructor in business law at the University of Maryland top
Groundbreaking cases
Though we always strive to avoid litigation, or settle it before trial, sometimes the issues are so close that actual trial (or even an appeal) is necessary. As one could expect, Shulman Rogers' litigators have achieved substantial success for their clients and created new law while doing so in many cases:
- Federal cases such as Kenny v. Glickman, 96 F.3d 1118 (8th Cir. 1996), which established the rule that the Secretary of Agriculture apply consistent regulatory practice in its interpretation of separate statutes; King v. Hillen, 21 F.3d 1572 (Fed. Cir. 1994), the first case to clarify the standards governing sexual harassment in the Federal workplace, and Altobelli v. International Business Machines Co., 77 F.3d 78 (4th Cir. 1986), a precedent setting decision in the ERISA field
- Important state-court decisions such as Kalkrecth Roofing v. West Pointe Plaza II, 109 Md. App 569, 675 A.2d 715 (1995) cert. denied, 343 Md. 564, 683 A.2d 177 (1996), which changed the way mechanics liens are pled in Maryland; DRHI Inc. v L'Ambiance Associates, Inc., 39 Va. Cir. 434 (1996); where we established the "vendees' lien" as a viable pre-judgment-attachment remedy in Virginia real-estate transactions in the sole reported case on that issue; EEOC v. Orkin Exterminating Co., 63 F. Supp. 2d 684 (D. Md. 1999), where one of our attorneys successfully presented the first argument before the Maryland federal courts regarding the proper standard for an award of punitive damages in an employment discrimination lawsuit; Wankel vs. A&B Contractors, Inc., 127 Md.App.128, 732 A.2d 333 (1999), cert. denied, 356 Md. 496 (1999), where we obtained summary judgment for one of the Firm's national-homebuilder clients in a case involving a natural-gas explosion that destroyed a residence and damaged surrounding residences; or most recently, in Harry W. Mulford, Trustee v. Edwards et al., Virginia Cir. Ct., Chancery No.: 164530 (Fairfax 2000) where judgment was obtained in favor of the grantor of five irrevocable trusts (with assets in excess of $7 million) whose authority to name trustees for his children's trusts had been challenged by a then-acting trustee.
These are only a few examples of the commercial-litigation department's continued accomplishments, which are consistently obtained in nearly every area of expertise with which the firm is involved. Top
