The Injury Litigation Blog

Facts and Opinions.
Feel free to disregard the opinions.

The Largest Law Firms in Baltimore Serve Businesses

By Byron Warnken

If you are an attorney or otherwise sophisticated in the law or business, you read the headline above and say, “Duh.”  Of course the Baltimore’s biggest law firms serve businesses.  Same is true everywhere for that matter.

But not everyone knows this simple fact.  Law firms and lawyers are arguably far more important to individuals than they are to corporations.  But for the same reason that Willie Sutton robbed banks, law firms cater to business – that’s where the money is.

It’s important for those hurt in an accident to get it.  There are an army of lawyers ready to go after you, not quite as many ready to shield you in your time of need.

Of Baltimore’s 25 largest law firms, only three are generally designed around serving individuals.  These include Peter Angelos’s firm, Steve Silverman’s firm, and Sid Friedman’s firm.  Only Peter Angelos’s firm really only represents individuals.

Granted, quite a few of these largest Baltimore firms serve individuals in that it’s wealthy individuals who own wealthy corporations.  The wealthy and their business interests can seldom be completely separated.  Therefore, a number of these large firms have high-end estate planning practices and/or wealthy individual tax practices.

Of the 25 biggest firms in Baltimore, there were 1,536 total lawyers in the Baltimore area offices.  Only 136 of them worked at the firms that primarily serve individuals.  

More astonishing – the big firms employ, in all, 9,746 lawyers in all offices.  Only 144 of these nearly 10,000 lawyers worked at the firms that primarily serve individuals.  1.46% of all the attorneys work with firms that primarily serve individuals.  Wow.

Of the 15 largest firms, almost half have a concentration in insurance defense.  The seventh largest firm is primarily a workers’ compensation defense firm.  The 13th largest has a huge presence in workers’ compensation defense.  There isn’t a single firm handling workers’ compensation for claimants.  (Peter Angelos’s office might have a lawyer or two doing claimant workers’ comp.)  Not one of our list of workers’ compensation lawyers in Maryland is on the list of largest firms.

Of the top 50 firms in Baltimore, only two are personal injury firms.  Peter Angelos’s firm and Salsbury, Clements, Bekman, Marder & Adkins.

I’d like to credit Baltimore Business Journal for the list of largest Baltimore firms.

I have numerous opinions on the above.  I will let the facts speak to you however you deem fit, though.

November Maryland Circuit Court Statistics

By Byron Warnken

Medical malpractice lawsuits, or the lack thereof, is what stood out in November.  There were only 21 different medical malpractice lawsuits filed in Maryland in November. The number seems smaller than one might otherwise guess. Well known defendants include Frederick Memorial Hospital, Northwest Hospital Center, Emergency Medicine Associates, PA, Franklin Square Hospital, Peninsula Regional Medical […]

Workers’ Compensation – Another Example of the Zero Sum Game

By Byron Warnken

Physician Dispensing of Medication High markups on physician-dispensed drugs are creating costs in the Maryland workers’ compensation system.  Maryland’s laws are friendly to the practice of repackaging drugs.   It’s happening around the country, though Maryland has some of the highest costs. Physician dispensing is when doctors give medications directly to patients rather than sending them to […]

The Baltimore Sun’s Coverage of Workers’ Compensation

By Byron Warnken

The Baltimore Sun has upped its game.  Luke Broadwater and Scott Calvert are doing some impressive work.  They are doing real journalism in an age where real journalism does not abound.  Kudos. In an extensive series about workers’ compensation and it’s impact on Baltimore, Broadwater and Calvert have spotlighted important issues.  The issues were there […]

Workers’ Compensation – Statistics from Two Databases

By Byron Warnken

The InjuryLawyerDatabase.com website is actually made up of two separate databases.  One database comes from the Workers’ Compensation Commission list of cases.  The other database comes from Maryland Case Search, the Maryland Judiciary’s list of cases.  The two databases are not combined on the website, resulting in multiple listings for a number of the more […]

Terminology on Injury Lawyer Database

By Byron Warnken

The statistics on InjuryLawyerDatabase come from two separate publicly available databases.  The first database we obtained was all of the public filings from the Maryland Workers’ Compensation Commission.  That data we turned into a book we called The Comp Pinkbook.  We sorted workers’ comp lawyers on both the claimant and employer sides, as well as […]

Maryland Workers’ Comp Commission Closed

By Byron Warnken

One of the Maryland workers’ compensation Commissioners had a death in the family.  The Commissioner’s mother passed away.  I do not want to be unsympathetic to that fact.  I still have my mother with me and it’s something for which I’m grateful.  I feel for the Commissioner at issue during this difficult time. That said, […]

Pinkbook – Highest Average Permanent Partial Award

By Byron Warnken

Earlier this week, this blog gave a list of the workers’ compensation lawyers in Maryland with the best average final settlements in comp cases.  The list saw the top of the list with an average final settlement of over $70,000. Generally, final settlements are higher than permanent partial awards.  Final settlements mean the case is […]