Kimmel & Silverman cases will be handled by managing attorney while

Daily Record, The (Baltimore), Sep 29, 2008 by Caryn Tamber

A managing attorney with Kimmel & Silverman P.C. will handle the firm's cases while the two name partners are suspended from practicing law in Maryland, according to letters the firm sent to opposing counsel and a judge.

Craig T. Kimmel and Robert M. Silverman, who head the Pennsylvania-based automobile lemon-law firm, were suspended by the Court of Appeals for 90 days earlier this month for inadequately supervising the lawyer who ran their Maryland office from 2004 to 2005. That lawyer defaulted on discovery, which led to 47 cases being dismissed.

According to a letter sent by Kimmel & Silverman lawyer Hy David Rubenstein to two of the attorneys defending carmakers against lemon claims, as of Oct. 2 and with clients' permission all of the cases will be transferred to The Law Offices of Jacqueline C. Herritt.

Herritt, the letters state, "has been a Managing Attorney" at Kimmel & Silverman. Her firm will occupy the same Owings Mills office that currently houses Kimmel & Silverman.

Anthony M. Conti of Conti, Fenn & Lawrence LLC, who represents several car companies against Kimmel & Silverman, called the change "just a farce." The Law Offices of Jacqueline C. Herritt is "Kimmel & Silverman in disguise," he said.

"We're going to challenge it and take discovery on the issue," Conti said. "These suspensions are to protect the public and there has to be consideration of that intention."

A spokesman for Kimmel & Silverman did not respond to a request for comment.

The letters do not say whether Herritt will continue her employment with Kimmel & Silverman during the period her practice will handle the cases. Another letter, from Herritt to a judge in one of the cases, was sent on Kimmel & Silverman letterhead, and the contact number for Herritt it listed was her number at Kimmel & Silverman.

Another automaker defense lawyer, Jeffrey M. Yeatman of DLA Piper US LLP, questioned Kimmel & Silverman's plan.

"It certainly seems curious that the solution to the suspension of the office is to have a new office opened up that consists of a Kimmel & Silverman employee," he said.

But, he said, "I would assume they've gotten some sort of clearance" to handle the suspension that way.

Bar Counsel Melvin Hirshman, whose office is in charge of enforcing attorney sanctions, declined to say whether he had signed off on Kimmel & Silverman's plan.

"I'm not going to make any comment about what we're doing," he said. "All that stuff is private and confidential."

Yeatman said he is less concerned with how Kimmel and Silverman manage their suspension than he is with whether they will face reciprocal discipline in the states in which they are licensed. (They have never been licensed in Maryland but were disciplined here anyway.) Both men are admitted to practice in Pennsylvania and New York, while Kimmel is also licensed in Massachusetts and Silverman in New Jersey.