President’s Message
Working Together by Elizabeth Jesukiewicz Frey
Elizabeth Jesukiewicz Frey (Jack Olender & Associates, P.C., Washington, DC) received her J.D. from the University of Baltimore School of Law. She is a member of MTLA’s President’s Club as a Founder, and serves on the Executive and Legislative Committees. She previously served as chair of the Membership Services, Education and Program and New Lawyer Committees. Ms. Frey is also a member of ATLA, The American Association of Nurse Attorneys, the Maryland State Bar Association, the Bar Association of the District of Columbia, and the Trial Lawyer Association of Metropolitan Washington, DC. Her practice concentrates in medical malpractice and personal injury.
MTLA has been more creative and
productive because of the valued members who have contributed their precious time, talent, skills and monetary donations to the organization. They are exploring new ideas and new ways to share information that make us better able to help our cli- ents.
The Membership Services Committee
continuously strives to strengthen the services we provide our members. This year, Membership Services collaborated with the other committees and sections, resulting in a synergistic effect and dem- onstrating how people can interact to make something that is greater than the sum of its parts.
Defense Medical Experts Tracking System
MTLA is working on providing our members with a way to track regular de- fense medical experts (DME). TrialSmith is developing a template that will allow our members to access information on defense doctors we see on a regular basis. Our members will be able to upload in- formation and review information other members have entered. The template will include the following fields: doctor’s name, defense attorney’s name and law firm who named the doctor, case caption and jurisdiction, DME date, the DME report as an attachment, date of any video depositions or trial appearances, finan-
cial information and plaintiff attorney’s name. The DME Tracking System will be accessible to members of the Automobile Negligence, Medical Negligence, Nurs- ing Home and Workers’ Compensation sections. This new membership benefit is possible because of the ingenuity, follow through, and talent of the volunteers of the Membership Services and Technology committees and the Automobile Negli- gence Section, under the leadership of Laura Zois, Eric Schloss and John Cord.
Proposed Amendment to Maryland Rule of Professional Conduct (MRPC) 1.15 (“Safekeeping Property” – Record-Keeping For Trust Accounts)
On behalf of the Court of Appeals, a
proposed rule change of Maryland Rule of Professional Conduct (MRPC) 1.15 is being circulated for comment. The proposal involves sweeping changes to record-keeping for trust accounts. An informal committee composed of Judge Glenn T. Harrell, Jr., David Downes, Es- quire, Mel Hirshman, Esquire, and Glenn Grossman, Esquire of the Attorney Griev- ance Commission is soliciting comments (see Proposed Rule 1.15 Change page #). Judge Harrell has requested the court hold a public hearing on the proposed amend- ment (or an amended version) on one of its March 2007 oral argument dates. MTLA’s leadership has accepted Judge
Harry A. Milman, Ph.D.
ToxNetwork.com
Consulting in Toxicology, Carcinogenesis, Pharmacology, and Pharmacy Standard of Care
14317 Bauer Drive Rockville, MD 20853
www.toxnetwork.com
4
Phone: 301-871-6715 Fax:
301-871-5586 e-mail:
hmilman@toxnetwork.com Trial Reporter
Harrell’s invitation to meet with his in- formal committee to discuss the proposal. Our concerns include: • The proposed 1.15(b) (8) would be unduly burdensome and undermine the very purpose for and utility of com- puter assisted accounting software.
• We seek clarification of 1.15(b) (10), which our accounting consultants and we do not understand.
• The requirement of 1.15(b) (7) for a client counter-signature on cash re- ceipts deviates from normal business practice and we are uncertain as to the purpose.
• We believe that there should be some examination of whether these new rules more properly belong in Title 16, Chapter 600 of the Maryland Rules of Procedure (Attorney Trust Accounts) rather than the Rules of Professional Conduct.
• We believe there should be an ex- amination of whether there should be a minimum threshold of monthly or annual transactions before the detailed accounting requirements come in to play. Many practitioners engage in lim- ited transactions for which “checkbook” accounting is more than satisfactory to comply with the needs of the Court of Appeals to protect the public.
If you have comments, please submit
them to Jack Condliffe at jcondliffe@
marylandfamilylaw.us.
Practice Sections MTLA’s practice sections help attorneys
through educational programs, document banks, networking and social events and their involvement on the Legislative Com- mittee. MTLA previously had a general docu-
ment bank. The sections, with the extraordinary help of John Cord, have developed their own specific document banks. Outlined below are just a few of the benefits now available to our members.
Winter 2007
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