As with all industries facing increasingly vocal consumers enabled by numerous online outlets to comment on products and services, lawyers regularly find themselves targets of negative reviews or other online criticism. However, lawyers are uniquely constrained in their ability to respond to such criticism by applicable ethical rules. The American Bar Association (“ABA”) recently opined…
Does Maryland recognize a stand-alone cause of action for breach of fiduciary duty? According to the Maryland Court of Appeals’ recent decision in Plank v. Cherneski, 469 Md. 548, 231 A.3d 436 (2020), “[c]ourts and commentators have been asking this question for 23 years since this Court articulated its holding in Kann v. Kann, 344…
Virtual court skills are now part of the ever-increasing demands upon lawyers. Trial courts and appeals courts have engaged in the use of virtual technology to allow judicial proceedings to continue notwithstanding the Coronavirus pandemic raging through the country. Appearing virtually in court presents new and unanticipated challenges to the Bar. Here, the experienced attorneys…
The District of Columbia is a generally favorable jurisdiction when it comes to defending legal malpractice claims at the motions stage. According to a significant D.C. Court of Appeals opinion from March 20, 2009, when lawyers make tactical mistakes, they should not be held liable if they acted in good faith. Where an attorney makes…
The United States Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recently released guidance and standards relating to employee safety in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. These documents outline the most commonly cited issues during inspections since the pandemic began in March of 2020, and provides insight on how employers should be protecting…
This month on October 5th, Maryland resumed jury trials, hoping to bring some sense of normalcy to this tumultuous and unprecedented year. However, although some courts have reopened, it is important to note that there have been many procedural changes that vary by county. Here, the attorneys at Eccleston & Wolf discuss the changes to…
On September 23, 2020, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) within the U.S. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced that CHSPSC, LLC, or Community Health Systems, must pay a $2.3 million settlement after a data breach occurred that affected 6 million individuals. Here, Maryland, D.C., and Virginia attorneys at Eccleston & Wolf…
The law has grown for centuries, using precedence as a means of determining certain cases. Two of these cases include Frye v. United States (1923) and Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals (1993), both of which relate to the admissibility of expert witness testimony. Here, the Maryland attorneys at Eccleston & Wolf discuss the use of…
In Nationwide Mut. Ins. Co. v. Shilling, 468 Md. 239 (2019), the Court of Appeals of Maryland recently clarified that the statute of limitations applicable to a claim for underinsured motorist benefits does not begin to run until the insurance carrier denies the insured’s demand for benefits. What is Uninsured and Underinsured Motorist Coverage? Drivers…
On July 9, 2020, Steve Cornelius, Al Frederick and Glenn Grossman from the Law Offices of Eccleston and Wolf, conducted a live webinar with Bar Counsel, Lydia Lawless, for a review of risk avoidance issues and techniques for lawyers on the subjects of social media, liens, escrow management and other topics.