By contrast, 22 people applied for a Circuit Court vacancy in 2008.

The District Court vacancy appears to be the first since November 2005, when Judge Philip Tirabassi was appointed to the bench.

Among the applicants are several senior prosecutors and public defenders, as well as an Orphans’ Court judge. The Judicial Nominating Commission for Baltimore County will meet in May and submit a list of nominees to Gov. Martin O’Malley, who will pick one.

A District Court judge’s annual salary is $127,252.

According to a study to be released later this month by The National Jurist (HT: ABA Journal), the astronomical rise in law school tuition in the last 10 years–102 percent at public schools and 74 percent at private schools–coincides with a 40 percent increase in faculty rosters over the same time period. The new faculty hires account for 48 percent of the tuition hikes, The National Jurist found.

Indiana University Maurer School of Law Professor William Henderson, who often writes and comments on the law school business model, attributes the flood of new hires to schools’ desire to do well in the U.S. News rankings, which take into account faculty-student ratio. Meanwhile, the professors are spending less time in the classroom and more time on scholarship.

I’m curious to see what you think about this, readers.

Professors: Are there too many of you, or is (what we’ve seen so far of) this study reductionist? Were faculty levels too low pre-1998, with today’s levels closer to appropriate? How crucial is the scholarship that professors do?

Students and recent grads: Are you angry that much of the crazy tuition you’re paying is a result of a hiring binge, or are you benefiting from the larger faculty?

Leonard H. Shapiro, a longtime criminal defense lawyer in Owings Mills, testified for the defense about the $10,000 legal fee at the heart of the case. George Michael Perez paid that amount to T. Wray McCurdy up front to defend Perez against arson charges filed by prosecutors in June 2007.

The sides dispute whether the money was an engagement or retainer fee. Shapiro, who called it an engagement fee based on the contract, said that was a reasonable amount regardless of what type of fee it was because of the complex nature of arson cases.

“Almost always you’re dealing with expert testimony and lots of discovery,” he said. “They are circumstantial cases developed through evidence.”

Under cross-examination by Michael T. Wyatt, Shapiro said retainer fees are different in a criminal case than in a divorce case. A criminal retainer does not have to be earned, he said, and there are some cases where an entire fee is required up front.

Shapiro then hypothetically made himself a lawyer who received a $10,000 fee to defend a client against arson charges. Shapiro said that money would be a reasonable fee if he called the State’s Attorney’s office and pointed out the flaws in prosecutors’ case, which ultimately led to the charges being dropped.

“Is $10,000 for a phone call reasonable?” Wyatt asked.

“In certain circumstances, it could be,” Shapiro replied.

Thoughts from the peanut gallery?

One thing that caught my eye is the FAQ’s approach to whether couples who feel their marriage-recognition rights have been denied should litigate. The answer: a big, italicized, “no.” Well, or at least a “not yet,” or a “for Pete’s sake, not without consulting us first.” From the FAQ:

It’s important to bear in mind that rushing into litigation often is not the answer. Many problems can be worked out without resort to the courts. Others may someday need to be resolved through litigation, and important protections for same-sex couples ultimately may need to be vindicated in the courts. But with marriage recognition bringing many important rights for many families, any litigation that could have broader impact on how the marriage recognition rule applies should be the product of careful thought and planning. A bad ruling could have far-reaching negative impact for your marriage and the marriages of many other couples.

I’m thinking the LGBT groups don’t want aggrieved same-sex marrieds taking a page from the Janice M. v. Margaret K. playbook. That was the same-sex ex child visitation case that was extensively litigated in Baltimore County and eventually went all the way up to the Court of Appeals. The top court held that, contrary to prior Court of Special Appeals holdings, Maryland does not recognize de facto parenthood, which had been an important tool for parents’ ex-lovers who wanted access to the children over the parent’s objections.

It will be interesting to see if all concerned heed the advice of the FAQ.

• House Judiciary chair Joe Vallario was disrespectful to Frederick Bealefeld at a hearing on automatic trials for people who don’t pay their tickets, The Sun’s Michael Dresser reports. The underlying bill, which would put the onus on people who want trials to request them, is very interesting as well.
• UM law student/blogger Moshe Glickman on the Shatzer 14-day Miranda ruling: “I under­stand that the police prac­ti­cally require a bright-line rule when they’re in the field. I respect the dif­fi­culty in for­mu­lat­ing such a rule. I seri­ously ques­tion whether this rule makes any sense whatsoever.”
• Above the Law weighs in on the Supreme Court’s cert grant in the Westboro Baptist Church case, which, of course, comes out of our own federal district. Elie Mystal writes, “So, if I’m a liberal that loves the First amendment and gays, what am I supposed to do?”
• The Charlotte Observer ran a heartwarming story over the weekend about a politician there who discovered that he was adopted and found his birth parents. His birth father, it turns out, is a politician too–a Maryland state delegate.
• Should the next SCOTUS justice be a Protestant? Does it matter? Is it OK to even discuss religion and the court?

Landau, as it turns out, is a family lawyer. She doesn’t practice accident and injury law. Years ago, McAndrews did a bunch of insurance-defense work, but he never did a significant amount of plaintiff’s injury work. He’s chiefly a criminal defense and business attorney.

Told that she has a 96 percent rating from the Web site, Landau joked, “that’s because I’ve just never lost one.”

When I suggested that it was all a little funny, she turned serious.

“Unless, of course, you’re the public and actually using this,” she said. “It would be incredibly frustrating.”

I was tipped off to the problems with bestattorneysonline.com by a blog post from Bob Ambrogi, a lawyer up in Massachusetts who put to the test the site’s list of the best intellectual property lawyers in that state. In a nutshell, he found:

At least four of this site’s picks for the top 10 IP lawyers in Mass. do not practice IP law or even dabble in it. One of the top 10 is not even in Mass.

I am willing to bet that the problems with this Web site’s rankings are not limited to the lists with which Ambrogi or I experimented.

So what gives, bestattorneysonline.com?

I called Jeev Trika, who’s in charge over there. His explanation was confusing. At first, he said the site takes its data from lawyers who set up profiles with the site. When I said it didn’t sound like the folks I spoke to had even heard of the site, he said his people also take data on practice areas from combing the Internet, such as lawyers’ own Web sites and other lawyer-evaluation hubs like Avvo and Martindale. So if bestattorneysonline.com gets it wrong, “it would certainly be an indication that that information is incorrect on other sites as well; I can tell you that,” Trika said.

Very well, but inaccurate information is still inaccurate information, and there doesn’t seem to be a point to any lawyer ranking that gets so much wrong.

Trika told me the business model includes selling advertising to lawyers. According to the Web site, lawyers can also pay to be considered for the site’s rankings:

Our rankings are one of the best ways to gain placement within the legal industry. bestattorneysonline.com uses a rigorous evaluation process to acknowledge the best attorneys around the world. Being evaluated is being given the opportunity to receive access to more potential clients and better conversion rates on potential calls.

It appears to cost $500 for each practice area in which you would like to be evaluated.

Aside from being willing to fork over the cash to be evaluated in the first place, a section of the site to which Trika referred me identifies other criteria used to formulate the accident and injury lawyer rankings:

We evaluate each of the accident and injury attorneys based on their ability to assess their clients’ situations and to work with them to protect their rights and to ensure that they receive the treatment and proper compensation they deserve.

The first aspect of the evaluation reviews the firm’s understanding of the important general accident and injury issues and laws.  Is the firm up-to-date on new court rulings and changes made by congress to protect the rights of those in accidents? Does the firm have a good handle on general precedent and case law regarding accident and injury cases?

Next we focus specifically on auto accident cases handled by the firm.  We assess each firm’s ability to evaluate the facts obtained from police reports and statements.  Out of that information we review what types of strategies would be used in different realistic scenarios.

We then look into an attorney’s ability to deal with class action lawsuits.  Is the lawyer equipped to handle the complexities of a class-action suit?  What is the firm’s record when representing these types of lawsuits?

Our fourth criterion analyzes the attorney’s handling of personal injury cases. How does the firm work to understand the liability involved with a personal injury case?   What types of investigation are employed to gain background information and other important information for the case?

The final focus is on the attorney’s ability to handle product liability or recall suits.  How often does a lawyer work on this type of case? How does the lawyer link the facts of the case together to determine the probable cause of the incident and ultimately who is liable for damages?

Now I ask ya (and here, you may imagine me using my best Marisa-Tomei-in-the-deer-scene-in-My-Cousin-Vinny voice): how did the site do all this for lawyers who don’t even practice injury law?

The upshot was an after-business-hours e-mail to the media from Wilson’s office. Received here at 6:24 p.m. Tuesday, it says, in part:

MDE today received a request from Governor Martin O’Malley to carefully and expeditiously review the citizen’s request to reconsider the decision allowing ExxonMobil to discontinue supplying bottled water. MDE will, of course, do so. This review, and previous decisions, are reviewed by scientists with expertise in groundwater, public health, and subsurface remediation.

Just to be clear, Wilson isn’t saying MDE has changed its mind, or that it will change its mind — only that it will think about the homeowners’ request that it change its mind.

I say this because we all probably did something similarly resourceful while in school to save a few bucks. Two recent stories about law school students have reinforced my point.

First is Julia Neyman, a student at Columbia Law School. Neyman has a blog, the cleverly-titled “Buns of Steal,” in which she chronicles her attempt to work out at health clubs in New York City for an entire year without paying once.

Neyman found gym memberships too expensive upon moving to New York to start law school but soon noticed gyms around the city gave out free passes and coupons. Enter her blog and her goal.

“Most people aren’t cheap enough to do this for a whole year,” she told The New York Daily News. “But I am.”

Next is University of Baltimore School of Law student Burke Miller, who posted an ad on Craigslist seeking tickets to Wednesday night’s Duke-Maryland basketball game in exchange for providing a certain number of billable hours to the seller upon passing the bar.

Miller told The Baltimore Sun one ticket seller contacted him but declined the offer.

“I’m still hopeful,” he said. “I’d sit down with [a seller] and make a contract and look at the standard billable rate for a young attorney. I’ve got full faith that I’d be a good attorney.”

I wish them both the best. (Incidentally, I’d be willing to part with some of my Terps T-shirts for a ticket to the game.)

NALP’s [James] Leipold says most firms cited privacy concerns for not divulging the details of their partnership arrangements. Because some firm offices are quite small, firms indicated they were concerned that nonequity partners would be easily identified and stigmatized, says Leipold.

A professor quoted in the article says the firms really want to protect their billing rates, not their nonequity partners. If clients don’t know the breakdown between equity and non, firms can charge high rates for all partners, she says.

Groups representing female and minority lawyers are especially peeved at the firms’ refusal to share their data. They want to know, basically, what proportion of a firm’s “partners” have a real stake in the firm and share in the profits, and what proportion are partners in name only, in actuality just employees with fancy titles.

It’s the difference between having real power and the semblance of power, says Fernande Duffly, a judge on the Massachusetts Appeals Court and a former president of the National Association of Women Judges. Duffly, an advocate for achieving greater diversity in the profession, had pushed NALP to collect the information for the last two years. “If you’re making a career selection, you want a place where you have opportunity for real leadership; I think law students want to be full partners,” Duffly says in explaining why the breakdown is important. She adds that she has a personal stake in the issue: “Law firm partners are part of the pipeline for our judiciary.”

For what it’s worth, The Daily Record also faced major resistance when we solicited information about equity versus non-equity partners for our Money Issue last year. A lot of firms refused to fill out our survey on revenue, profits and other money questions, but many also declined to break down their partnership ranks by equity and non-equity.

Quoting Cooley President Don LeDuc, The National Law Journal writes:

“It’s a little bit unique, but this is just one example of how we do marketing to get our name out there,” LeDuc said.

Cooley has long taken a different approach to marketing than do most law schools — it has advertised on billboards and sponsored television and radio programs, for example.

“People like to pretend that education isn’t competitive, but it is,” LeDuc said. “You’ll probably see more things like this in the future.”

With 3,600 students at campuses in Lansing, Grand Rapids, Auburn Hills and Ann Arbor, Mich., Cooley is the largest law school in the country and attracts a large number of part-time students. Cooley has been expanding steadily, but just keeping the student body at its present level requires getting its name out into the public, LeDuc said.

Can you see anything like this ever happening with either of the two law schools in Maryland? I’m thinking no. However, if UB Law ever does decide it wants Oriole Park at Camden Yards to be known as “University of Baltimore School of Law Oriole Park at Camden Yards” (or something like that), perhaps its most prominent alumnus can float a discount.