Mark is a Baltimore native, a civil litigator, a cyclist, a scholar, a former federal appellate law clerk, an organizer, a father, and a tea drinker, to name but a few facets of his life. Mark graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Duke University, was Order of the Coif at the University of Michigan Law School where he received the school’s highest honor, the Henry M. Bates Memorial Scholarship Award, was a Contributing Editor at the Michigan Law Review, and clerked for the Honorable Francis D. Murnaghan, Jr., of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. That was a lot of accomplishment even before he began private practice.

As a practicing attorney over these thirty plus years, Mark has represented businesses and people in all sorts of civil litigation matters, inmates in state and federal post-conviction actions, and he has spent time litigating Maryland’s campaign finance laws—but this doesn’t even scratch the surface of his experience.

Mark’s generosity with his time on behalf of legal causes was recognized by the United States District Court for the District of Maryland which named him the first recipient of its Pro Bono Service Award, and by the Maryland Bar Foundation which awarded him its Legal Excellence Award. He is also an elected member of the American Law Institute, an honor limited to just 3,000 lawyers, judges and law professors. It is for good reason Mark is well known by Baltimore’s lawyers and jurists.

Mark’s commitment to public service has been strong and consistent. In addition to his pro bono services, he is an adjunct professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law; has served as President of the Library Company of the Baltimore Bar from 1992 to 2006; and has been Chair of the Baltimore City Sitting Judges Committee for more years than anyone of us can remember. Rumor has it Mark first became involved with a Sitting Judges campaign when he was seven years old. He is a permanent member of the Fourth Circuit Judicial Conference, and is a member of the Wranglers Law Club where he served as Pooh Bah.

He’s an avid long distance cyclist. For years he made the annual bike trek from Baltimore to Ocean City to attend the Maryland State Bar Association’s Annual Meeting, and that was a short ride, although we calculate this to demand 34,164 pedal revolutions (and the ground is pretty flat between Baltimore and Ocean City). Recently, Mark’s hobby bled over into his professional life when his legal skills prevented the removal of a bike lane in Baltimore’s Canton neighborhood, the neighborhood where Mark’s great-grand parents settled in the 19th century and where he was raised.