Update on the Law Office of Bruce Godfrey

Greetings to clients, fellow members of the Bench and Bar, family and friends.

The traditional U.S. tax filing date of April 15 is upon us (though returns are not due for several more days) and it is perhaps appropriate that the Law Office of Bruce Godfrey should provide a cheerful accounting of its activities and news – good things have been happening.

I want to thank bankruptcy law attorney Jeffrey Nesson, Esquire and family law attorney Fred Cohen, Esquire for being great landlords at 11421 Reisterstown Road in Owings Mills. I am vacating the professional space at that office effective May 31, 2011, and will be moving my practice to an executive suite center in Owings Mills within walking distance of my apartment. I would encourage anyone, particularly independent professionals, seeking basic professional space in Baltimore County to contact Jeff at 410-363-4488.

15 years ago I located my practice in the same space where I will be moving to at the end of May, although another management company ran the space at the time. Thinking of that space brings me back to one cold, wet morning in April 1997, when I was using the space virtually (i.e. for client meetings only) and I had a phone number but no phone by which to take the calls – in the aftermath of a devastating house fire that nearly totalled my parents’ home where I was living not long after law school. I recall that time well, going to court without proper attire after the fire because all my clothes were smoked; the judge could smell the smoke off of my tie.  I still recall the cold wet spring, and later the task of counting up all my smoke-damaged socks and law books out in the grass for the insurance claim.

Initially I will be using the space virtually but expect to expand into more permanent space in the same facility in short order. The new professional location at 10451 Mill Run Circle, very near I-795, will be easier for me to reach as well since it will be a modest walk from my apartment; I can see the building from my apartment balcony and look forward to incorporating the exercise of that walk to work into my routine. My children live with their mother Sunday Stilwell a slightly longer walk from my apartment in the opposite direction; the new arrangement is ideal for removing the inefficiency of a dead-weight commute, allowing more time for productivity. Most critically, the new space will fully accommodate Law Office clients’ needs and has ample conference space for depositions, settlement conferences and the like.

In addition to the new primary space in Owings Mills, the Law Office of Bruce Godfrey has a new location by appointment for conferences with Montgomery County/Washington area clients. Jezic, Krum and Moyse, LLC is a primary practice ally of this Law Office; their firm and this Law Office frequently cooperate on specific cases when the pooling of attorney skill sets (business, tax, language skills, etc.) makes sense. The Law Office is now free to set appointments in its new location at 2730 University Boulevard West, Suite 910, Wheaton, MD 20902.

In terms of professional affiliations, the Law Office remains a referral law firm for Pre-Paid Legal Services, Inc. and the Union Plus Network as before. In addition, the Law Office has become an approved referral attorney for the following legal services plans:

Countrywide Pre-Paid Legal Services, Inc.
Caldwell Legal Services
US Legal Services, Inc.
ARAG Legal
Legal Club of America
Legal Resources, Inc.

Additional referral networks may be coming online to the practice.

The Law Office has also become Of Counsel to the Consumer First Legal Group, LLC in its consumer-oriented legal advice program and its debt settlement legal services division.

In additional happy developments, Bruce Godfrey has received preliminary approval to provide online instruction on the topic of unemployment insurance appeals in a specific forum. The details are still under “embargo” for now but you can expect further announcements in the near future here. The firm’s Pink Slip Bulletin is growing as a resource on unemployment issues both legal and social.

Finally, I will provided a happy story, mentioned here to show the importance of using an attorney and to commend pro bono work. The following information is from an unemployment appeals hearing which, by state regulation, is a public hearing. I was pleased to represent a disabled worker over the age of 50 against Wal-Mart Associates, Inc., the largest corporation in the history of the Universe, completely pro bono last week. In my client’s case, the claims specialist had found for the worker and allowed benefits in the initial proceeding, rejecting as unfounded the claims of alleged “time theft” on the employee’s time card by Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart appealed through its HR consulting company TALX, but did not bother to send an attorney OR a non-attorney consultant to the appeals hearing that it had requested.

When I showed up with my client to the hearing, the Wal-Mart management employee who showed up refused to testify without her corporate attorney present, asked for a postponement but provided no reason for the attorney’s absence and stated that she would not be offering testimony at all. I objected strenuously, arguing that the largest corporation in the history of the universe had requested this appeal of a granting of benefits after losing below, had consultants available to it including attorneys and non-attorneys through TALX, had a period before the hearing date to request a postponement if one were needed and that the worker was ready to proceed then and there. The hearing examiner carefully weighed the postponement request but ultimately denied it as inequitable under the circumstances. Accordingly, management refused to testify, my client denied any intentional wrongdoing and I got the affirming opinion in the mail yesterday – my worker prevailed.

The Law Office is a business; the IRS (on all of our minds of late) says law offices are businesses and the IRS more or less runs this country. The Law Office charges fees because this is a business, the services have a real value and the Law Office deserves full value in return. But the ethics rules of the legal profession strongly urge pro bono work, not quite compelling it but coming close.

While I did not earn a fee for this work, not even gas money (!) or parking, I benefitted greatly. I got to help someone who, like my autistic sons who may someday be disabled workers and potentially vulnerable workers, needed a voice. I got to confirm that Wal-Mart Associates, Inc. and its consulting company TALX are sometimes penny-wise to a pound-foolish fault – valuable intelligence. I learned that one specific hearing examiner is as judicious and reasonable as I believed and hoped he would be. And I get now to enjoy the continued good feelings of a simple hand-written thank you note from a grateful client – an in-kind benefit that Congress has not yet figured out how to tax.

Many lawyers dislike pro bono work and not all pro bono clients are congenial or cooperative. Nonetheless I encourage any reader who practices in Maryland to do a little pro bono. The Maryland Court of Appeals urges 50 hours per year; I don’t do 50 hours and frankly am unlikely to do so in the foreseeable future. But a little bit of pro bono may surprise you in terms of the benefits that it pays back. In a pro bono case, especially a case where you are facing a “Kobayashi Maru” scenario of near impossible odds, you may (as have I) feel more free to remember your idealism and the spirit of being new and young in the law.

You may feel more free to be bold, to “straighten your back up” in the words of Martin Luther King, Junior and make the daring arguments that you might be reluctant otherwise to make. It’s easier, I have found, not to self-censor but instead to be audacious and “fist-forward” when fighting not for the money but for the good of the public. Accordingly, I encourage my sisters and brothers at the Bar who have stumbled onto this website: take one pro bono case and try to keep one pro bono case, large or small, active in your file drawer if you can. If you can’t, you can’t, but at least think about it.

Thank you for dropping by!

Posted by Bruce Godfrey