Baltimore

The attorneys in Duane Morris' Baltimore office provide counsel and services to businesses in a wide range of industries, including the area's renowned medical and life sciences community and its growing high tech sector. From entrepreneurs and newly emerging businesses to financial institutions and multinational corporations, Duane Morris' Baltimore attorneys call upon their experience and the resources of one of the world's 100 largest law firms to serve clients locally and globally.

Range of Services

Corporate, Securities, Mergers and Acquisitions

Our corporate law attorneys advise early-stage and mature companies on a wide variety of corporate and securities matters. Members of our Corporate Practice Group are experienced with mergers and acquisitions, including negotiated acquisitions and divestitures, hostile acquisitions and defense against takeover attempts. Our lawyers regularly represent international clients in both domestic and transnational transactions. They are experienced with venture capital and private equity transactions and work with our entrepreneurial clients in developing and implementing creative strategies to accomplish their corporate finance and acquisition objectives. We also represent clients in a range of securities offerings and advise public companies on compliance with ongoing reporting obligations and other securities laws.

Complex Financial Transactions

Our attorneys represent clients in numerous types of transactions covering nearly every aspect of project and structured finance transactions. The firm's lawyers have extensive experience with financings involving corporations and financial institutions on a regional, national and international level. Our project and structured finance attorneys represent clients in acquisition financings, securitized and syndicated loans, and other complex finance transactions. In addition, the firm's lawyers are experienced in structuring and effectuating complex transactions from a tax perspective.

Banking and Financial Services

Duane Morris attorneys have represented banks, savings associations and their holding companies in jurisdictions across the U.S. and around the world. Our lawyers also have represented other providers of financial services, including investment banking and brokerage firms, commercial finance companies, insurance companies and credit unions in a broad range of regulatory, legislative and business law areas. The firm serves as counsel in a wide range of expansion and restructuring transactions, including domestic and international mergers and acquisitions, strategic divestitures, merger/conversion transactions, purchases and sales of branches and branch systems, product development, the pursuit of new powers and antitrust counseling and litigation.

Financial Markets

The firm's attorneys represent securities, futures and derivatives firms and professionals in these industries. We provide start-up services, assisting clients in registration and formation. We also counsel clients regarding regulatory compliance and enforcement, criminal investigations and related arbitration and litigation. We focus on problem prevention, including comprehensive reviews of clients' existing policies and procedures and regulatory-style examinations to detect inappropriate practices and help clients prepare for compliance audits.

Employment and Labor Relations

Duane Morris' lawyers represent employers of all sizes in a broad spectrum of labor and employment matters, including equal employment opportunity compliance and litigation, statutory compliance and litigation defense and employment termination. We provide a full range of labor relations services, representing clients in union-organizing campaigns, proceedings before the National Labor Relations Board, negotiations of labor contracts and disputes over labor contract provisions. We assist employers in protecting their proprietary information and in enforcing noncompetition and nonsolicitation agreements. Our lawyers emphasize policies to prevent employment problems through our problem prevention programs and services, including seminars and workshops, customized training programs and employment practice audits.

Private Client Services

Duane Morris' Private Client Services Practice Group represents a broad range of closely held business owners and other high net worth individuals with respect to their personal and professional planning. The firm provides estates, trusts, asset planning and related litigation services to individuals, business owners, charitable organizations and fiduciaries. The Private Client Services attorneys have significant experience in the settlement of decedents' estates, fiduciary income tax matters, administration of trusts and counseling on family matters. Throughout each relationship with clients, Duane Morris attorneys work to minimize tax exposure and implement creative strategies to preserve capital and transfer resources within the client's family and to next generations. The firm also provides all aspects of fiduciary litigation services related to probate, trust and guardianship administration.

Marine Transportation and Logistics

Attorneys in the firm have a deep understanding of and extensive experience in the marine, transportation and logistics industries. They have tried and arbitrated virtually every type of marine and transit casualty case throughout the United States and internationally, including marine oil spills, collisions, sinkings, general averages, salvage, hazardous material liabilities, charter parties, and cargo claim liability. They are routinely involved in reviewing transportation and logistics services agreements and litigating related contract disputes.

Gaming

Duane Morris' Gaming Law Group draws upon the experience and knowledge of a multidisciplinary team of lawyers who assist clients in establishing their gaming enterprises and dealing with issues that arise while operating those businesses. The firm's gaming clients receive seamless counsel and advice in a myriad of areas, from licensing and regulatory issues, real estate development, litigation, intellectual property matters, financing and tax issues, corporate matters, and labor and employment concerns. Duane Morris lawyers represent diverse members of the gaming industry, including casinos, gaming executives, gaming equipment manufacturers and distributors, investment advisors, greyhound and horse racetracks, Internet and software development companies, and other parties that provide services and products to gaming enterprises. The firm's large geographic footprint and diverse capabilities make Duane Morris particularly well suited to support the needs of large and growing gaming establishments that intertwine entertainment, retail, hospitality and community development.

Real Estate

Duane Morris' real estate attorneys represent a broad range of high-profile institutional and individual clients in all aspects of real estate transactions and related matters. The Real Estate Practice Group handles real estate acquisitions and dispositions, financings, workouts and restructurings, development and leasing, land use and zoning issues.

Complex Litigation and Alternative Dispute Resolution

Lawyers in Duane Morris' Trial Practice Group represent clients in all types of complex commercial litigation, from inception through trial and appeal. Duane Morris litigators are experienced in an array of areas, including securities, antitrust, intellectual property, environmental and real estate disputes. Members of the Trial Practice Group work closely with the firm's corporate and bankruptcy lawyers and often represent financial institutions. The firm's attorneys have represented numerous international and national manufacturers in all forms of products liability and toxic tort litigation, including defense of product class actions, serving as national coordinating counsel, lead counsel, regional counsel or local counsel. Duane Morris also represents both individuals and corporations facing federal and state allegations of criminal conduct, including fraud, environmental crimes, securities violations, RICO violations, trade espionage and a variety of business-related offenses. In addition to representing clients in U.S. forums and before international tribunals, the firm also provides counsel on settling disputes without conventional litigation by using alternative dispute resolution and advises on methods to anticipate and avoid litigation.

Products Liability, Toxic Torts and Product Safety

The firm's national litigation practice represents numerous international and national manufacturers and insurance companies in all forms of products liability litigation, including defense of product class actions, in both federal and state courts, and consolidated multidistrict actions, serving as lead counsel and as local, regional and national counsel. The firm's experience includes defense of mass tort litigation in which lawsuits from multiple districts are handled by a coordinated team effort. Whether defending a products liability client in a single catastrophic injury case or acting as national litigation coordinating counsel for a client with thousands of pending product cases, Duane Morris litigators are supported by the firm's state-of-the-art litigation technology, which is creatively applied to efficiently and cost-effectively manage the particular litigation.

In addition to handling litigation matters, Duane Morris products liability lawyers have a wealth of experience assisting clients in developing and implementing product recalls on a national and worldwide basis, and in representing clients involving reporting, recall and penalty proceedings before the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). The firm's product safety group also advises clients regarding product development risk management, labeling and instructions, safety standards, warranties, quality assurance and testing, records management, import-export, distributor and retailer relationships, and risk-shifting strategies involving contracts, insurance and other tools.

White-Collar Criminal Litigation

Duane Morris counsels both individuals and corporations facing federal and state allegations of criminal conduct. The firm's lawyers advise clients accused of Medicare/Medicaid fraud and abuse, environmental crimes, securities violations, criminal tax fraud, fraud in government procurement, RICO violations, trade espionage and a variety of business-related offenses. Duane Morris attorneys also have extensive experience leading internal investigations.

Information Technology and Telecommunications

Duane Morris has assembled a dedicated group of attorneys possessing specific industry knowledge and interdisciplinary skills to address the transactional, finance, regulatory and dispute resolution aspects of structuring and implementing a wide range of information technologies and telecommunications projects.

For More Information

For more information, please contact Michael C. Hardy or any of the lawyers referenced in the Attorney Listing.