Miller & Zois, LLC

    Salisbury has in recent years become a far more favorable jurisdiction for Maryland accident lawyers handling personal injury cases in Salisbury. This is arguably due in part to the area becoming more affluent and cosmopolitan in recent years. Salisbury was recently ranked the 55th "Hottest Small City" by Inc. Magazine in their annual report of the nation's "Best Cities for Doing Business." Salisbury is clearly a town on the rise.There are a few points of interest about handling personal injury cases in Wicomico County Circuit Court. After receiving your Scheduling Order which will contain all of the discovery deadlines and pretrial conference dates, the experienced personal inury attorney will carefully avoid a trial scheduled in the months of January, February, and early March when the chance of snow is the greatest. Unlike large metropolitan cities which are accustomed to significant snowfall and equipped to deal with its removal in a quick and efficient manner, the Eastern Shore of Maryland is not. Although significant snowfall is rare in Salisbury, if snow does fall and the public schools are closed you will be hard pressed to find a jury panel for your trial. This will present a hardship on the plaintiff's personal injury lawyer who has already paid significant sums of money for the expert witnesses to travel to the Eastern Shore to testify. If at all possible, personal injury lawyers with a case in Salisbury should file a motion to have the trial date moved to a warmer month as soon as a copy of the Scheduling Order is received.     

     Unlike most scheduling orders, Wicomico County scheduling orders will also contain the deadline for all videotaped depositions (Prince George's County also has a rule that video depositions must be done two weeks before trial). Plaintiff's accident lawyers should not assume that entering into an agreement with opposing counsel to take video depositions outside the deadline will suffice with the Court. Regardless of such an agreement, the Court may refuse to entertain a Motion in Limine to address objections the attorney raised during the deposition. If you file a Motion to extend the deadlines, also include a Motion to extend the deadline to file Motions in Limine to address objections raised during the deposition.
     One bonus of practicing in Salisbury is that the well prepared attorney can call the jury commissioner on the eve of trial and obtain the list of prospective jurors who are scheduled to appear the following day. A "sneak preview" of prospective jurors can often provide an edge to the trial attorney and a more effective use of your premptory strikes. Insist on a roll call before the judge begins the voir dire. When one judge stated in a case handled by one of our attoneys, "The clerk already conducted roll call while you were in the hall" - the attorney kindly reminded the judge that his client was entitled to a roll call pursuant to the Maryland Rules.