Last week, the Baltimore City Department of Transportation announced that it is pushing its chips to the center of the table when it comes to speed and red light cameras. Baltimore has a program called the City’s Automated Traffic Violation Enforcement System (ATVES). Not so much to me because I’ve…
Anybody who has seen the fantastic HBO series The Wire knows that the Baltimore Police have more than enough to do. Even with the recent drop in Baltimore’s murder rate, our police are still very busy. The problem is not that they are offended by a subpoena. This can cause…
Nobody ever calls me because something good happened. That’s an unfortunate reality for lawyers in my line of work. Every time the phone rings, it is because something bad happened. At best, the bad thing is a totaled car and a painful, but treatable, injury. At worst, the bad thing…
Uninsured/underinsured motorist cases are probably the most complicated kind of car accident cases you will see. These cases are called “hybrid” actions because they combine contract and tort law. You have the underlying tort case against the negligent driver, along with a contract cause of action against the UM carrier.…
Here is another great real-life trial preparation tip that I have forgotten myself in the past: Check the weather the day before! I am finalizing my preparations for a trial tomorrow in a car accident case in Baltimore County Circuit Court. According to weather.com, there is a 60% chance of…
In Part I, I talked about how useful a set of portable office supplies can be for staying organized at trial. But that is just a small part of the required level of organization. In this installment, I discuss another vital part of my overall organizational system- the trial box.…
Earlier this month, I had a three-day jury trial in a car accident case in the Circuit Court for Montgomery County. I tried the case along with the referring lawyer under a Rule 1.5 fee-sharing agreement. Although he is an experienced lawyer, he had never handled a jury trial before…
When a driver gets sued for injuring somebody in a car accident, they don’t have to go out and spend their own money hiring a lawyer to defend the case. They call up their car insurance company and tell it that they have been sued. They send in the papers,…
As the Internet Age progresses, personal injury litigation will continue to change. This extends to the “toolkit” that lawyers use to prove liability in car accident injury cases. Technology creates more weapons for and against us. What is Google Earth Google Earth is a computer program that allows users to…
It has been a very busy summer for me and there is no respite in sight. This is a good problem to have during a time when even large national law firms have been downsizing because of a lack of work. I just finished a jury trial in Baltimore City…