From lawyers to Super Lawyers

Local attorneys earn recognition

Wednesday, Feb. 21, 2007

Click here to enlarge this photo Staff Photo by Gary Smith John Mudd, left, and Stephen Fitzgerald of Mudd, Mudd & Fitzgerald have been named Super Lawyers in a 2007 publication. E-Mail This Article | Print This Story

Maryland Super Lawyers 2007 was released late last year, and that was the first Mudd said he had heard that such an honor even existed. The designation is listed as part of the publication Law and Politics and the publishers of Baltimore Magazine. Those named are chosen only by other attorneys in Maryland, and only if the nominator has a working relationship with the nominee.

Mudd and his partner, Stephen Fitzgerald, are attorneys in La Plata with decades of experience between them. Mudd’s roots run deep in the Charles County field of law; both his father and grandfather were attorneys in La Plata.

‘‘My father was a lawyer for 40 years, my grandfather was a lawyer for 40 years, hopefully I’ll be a lawyer for 40 years,” Mudd said.

He’s certainly coming close. At 62, he has been a lawyer for 38 years. He has raised his eight children in La Plata, and his son, Mark, is now a partner at the law firm.

Mudd attended undergraduate school at the University of Notre Dame, graduating magna cum laude in 1966, and law school at the University of Maryland, graduating in 1969. By November 1969, he had passed the bar exam and was practicing law in La Plata with his father. His brother, Tom, is also a lawyer.

‘‘He’s better than me,” Mudd said.

Mudd’s part of the firm focuses mostly on criminal and domestic law. It is work that Mudd said he loves.

‘‘I’m a lucky guy,” he said. ‘‘I love getting up in the morning. I love doing what I’m doing.”

He said he enjoys talking to clients and doing his best to help them through their problems. ‘‘Hopefully, I can make a difference in the outcome” of their cases, he said. Because of the nature of Mudd’s practice, most of his clients are ‘‘in some kind of distress,” he said. ‘‘I’m trying to give them aid, comfort, advice and a common-sense approach” to their case.

In his 38 years of experience, Mudd said he has probably learned the most about law from his service on the Maryland State Board of Law Examiners, which administers the bar exam to prospective lawyers.

‘‘Doing that has kept me in touch with areas of the law I don’t always deal with,” he said.

In his first years as an attorney, Mudd said he had to get over a ‘‘skittishness” about speaking in front of people, which could have made it difficult for him to argue cases. One of the things about his job that he takes most seriously is the fact that at times, his clients might be in danger of going to prison.

Sometimes, ‘‘What I advise them to do will impact their personal freedom for a very long time,” he said.

Fitzgerald thinks his partner is up to the task.

‘‘He is more deserving of this than I am,” Fitzgerald said of the Super Lawyer status. ‘‘He’s been doing it longer, and he’s the finest lawyer in Charles County.

‘‘He is more concerned about the profession of practicing law than the business of practicing law.”

Fitzgerald has raised his own four children in La Plata and has been a lawyer there for 29 years. He said he does mostly civil litigation for the firm.

When asked why he became a lawyer, he seemed surprised by the question, saying no one had ever asked it of him before.

‘‘I guess I like to argue, and I like justice to prevail,” he said. ‘‘I like to think I make a difference in terms of seeing that what ought to happen, happens.”

Fitzgerald got his undergraduate degree from the University of Maryland, and his law degree from the University of Baltimore. He was born in Washington, D.C., and moved to La Plata 29 years ago.

Both lawyers said they were pleased about the Super Lawyer designation, mostly because it comes from their peers.

‘‘I’m pleased that somebody thought that the work we do warranted some small recognition,” Mudd said.

For more information about Super Lawyers, go to www.superlawyers.com.

E-mail Carrie Lovejoy at clovejoy@somdnews.com.