Derwood Lawyers

I am a lifelong resident of Montgomery County and practice Criminal Defense law in the Federal and State Courts of Maryland and the District of Columbia. I am a very proud graduate of the University of Maryland and University of Baltimore Law School. I have been honored in 2009 to serve as Chair of the Maryland State Bar Association Criminal Law Section Council and to previously have served as President of the Maryland Criminal Defense Attorney Association. I am also serving my second 4 year term as the Criminal Defense representative on the Maryland State Commission on...

Michelle Chapin, a member of the firm’s Estate Planning, Estate & Trust Administration, Tax and Corporate practice groups, advises individuals, families and small business owners regarding their estate and gift planning needs. Recognized as a Top Trusts and Estates Lawyer in Washingtonian magazine, Michelle excels at providing clients with easy to understand explanations of intricate legal and tax matters. She works closely with her clients to create comprehensive and customized estate and business succession plans to achieve their tax and non-tax wealth preservation objectives. She also helps clients implement lifetime gifting and post-mortem wealth transfer strategies and counsels fiduciaries on...

Paula Calimafde chairs the firm’s Retirement Plans, Employee Benefits and Government Relations practice groups and is also a senior member of the Estate Planning, Tax and Nonprofit groups. She has more than 35 years of experience advising companies and tax-exempt organizations on qualified and non-qualified retirement plans and employee benefits, including non-qualified deferred compensation, welfare benefit and cafeteria plans. She is a nationally recognized leader in the field of creative retirement plan designs for businesses and works closely with management and owners to prepare retirement plans, which suit the particular corporate needs.
Paula’s practice encompasses sophisticated estate planning and advising individuals...

Rick Claxton, a member of the firm’s Litigation, Appellate and ADR practice groups, has over 30 years of courtroom experience representing clients ranging from individuals to Fortune 50 corporations. A veteran of dozens of jury and bench trials, Rick focuses his practice on complex business cases, such as corporate and partnership disputes, construction litigation, business torts, and employment litigation. However, Rick has always maintained a diverse practice, including cases ranging from copyright and trademark litigation to representation of individuals with major personal injury claims.
In addition to his trial work, Rick has substantial appellate court experience, having briefed and argued cases...

Glenn Cooper is the Chair of the firm’s Litigation practice and senior partner in our Family Law practice. He frequently appears before federal and state courts at both the trial and appellate levels, and before arbitration panels and professional disciplinary boards. No matter whether he is litigating a matter of a business or domestic nature, Glenn aggressively defends his clients’ positions and pursues their desired outcomes. The majority of Glenn Cooper's practice is devoted to complex business, financial, commercial and domestic litigation involving significant business issues.
A number of Glenn's cases have helped shape the current state of the law in...

For 35 years, Robert has specialized in insurance recovery on behalf of policyholders. As Chair of the Insurance Recovery group and a member of the firm’s Litigation practice, Robert litigates complex disputes against insurance companies on behalf of corporations seeking coverage for all manner of claims involving every form of risk and exposure such as those arising out of products, securities, directors & officers, energy, automotive, financial institutions, medical devices and health, among others.
Robert has successfully argued precedent-setting appeals in the second, third, and fourth U.S. Courts of Appeals, as well as the California Court of Appeal, San Francisco...

Lorna Maloney, Esq. is the Founder and Managing Partner of Maloney & Hayes Law Offices, PC. with offices in Maryland and the District of Columbia. She earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Psychology; Master of Arts Degree in Political Management and her Juris Doctorate Degree with honors. Ms. Maloney taught legal courses for several years before getting into private practice. She is committed to providing exceptional legal service to all of her clients.

Hope is Co-Chair of the firm’s Employment Law practice. For more than 30 years she has represented a variety of businesses, trade associations, and non-profit organizations in all areas of employment law, including age, gender, race, and disability discrimination; sexual and other harassment; wage and hour matters; and non- competition disputes.
Hope thoroughly familiarizes herself with her clients’ businesses, their goals and needs, and then works with them to craft solutions to meet those needs. She works with companies to develop regulatory-sensitive employment policies for recruitment, selection, promotion, discipline, and termination of employees, and evaluates and advises clients with regard to...

Advocate and adviser for government employees, business professionals, and businesses in a wide range of employment and civil litigation matters.

Civil Litigation:
- Represent individuals and businesses in various civil-litigation matters, including business litigation, contract disputes, partnership disputes, and insurance coverage.
- Represent licensed professionals in investigations, disciplinary proceedings, and appeals of adverse agency decisions regarding licensure.
- Experienced trial lawyer in state and federal court.
- Experienced appellate attorney in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, D.C. Court of Appeals, Maryland Court of Appeals, and Maryland Court of Special Appeals.
- Law clerk...

Trish Weaver is Chair of the Appellate Practice group and a member of the Litigation, Alternative Dispute Resolution and Corporate practices. Over the past 20 years, she has handled numerous appeals, authored briefs and argued before the Maryland Court of Appeals, the Maryland Court of Special Appeals and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. She is admitted to, and awaits the chance to argue before, the U.S. Supreme Court. Prior to joining Paley Rothman, Trish clerked for the Honorable Howard S. Chasanow on the Maryland Court of Appeals.
Trish enjoys building ongoing relationships with her clients as their...

Jessica Summers is an Associate in the firm’s Employee Benefits, Employment Law, Retirement Plans, Litigation and Government Relations practice groups. Jessica works with companies and organizations on a wide range of matters, including establishing and implementing effective employment policies, drafting employment agreements, maintaining employee benefit plans, addressing corporate planning issues and monitoring and advising clients on legislative and regulatory developments of import to them.
As an all-purpose business attorney with experience across several practice areas, Jessica has a comprehensive understanding of the legal and business needs of her clients and uses a common sense approach to finding solutions. In looking out...

Ryan Spiegel chairs the firm’s Government Contracts practice and is a member of its Litigation, Corporate, and Science & Technology practice groups. His work spans a wide range of industries, includes general business and risk management counseling, and is characterized by outstanding client service, effective case strategy, and creative legal arguments. While he can be a tenacious litigator when necessary and maintains an excellent grasp of procedure, Ryan strives to understand his clients’ interests and goals and seek the best solution for them. He believes that resolving problems and disputes is more important than arguing for its own sake.
In recent...

David Shapiro is the Chair of Paley Rothman's Health Law practice group, and a member of the firm's Corporate, Science & Technology, Employment Law and Government Contracts practice groups. David has an extensive background representing business entities, healthcare providers, surgical centers, professional service vendors and entrepreneurs in a broad range of general business, commercial, regulatory and complex transactional matters, including early-stage business planning, business management and operations, equity and asset transfers, inter- and intra-business contract relationships, mergers and acquisitions and collaborative and adversarial business owner and proxy dispute resolutions.
David’s business practice focuses on full life-cycle representation for emerging and established...

Roy Niedermayer is a member of the firm’s Litigation, Appellate Practice and Government Contracts practice areas. He excels in risk management - he identifies and assesses risk in each of his cases and then discusses alternative strategies in light of probabilities of outcomes to determine what the best cost-benefit course of action is. He may create decision tree analyses, determining what factors affect risk, how to reduce risk, and assigns probability of success. When first meeting with a client, Roy finds out what the client is hoping to achieve and what their goals are - in doing this he understands...

Paul Marcotte, Jr. Chairs the firm’s Tax practice group and is a member of its Estate Planning, Estate & Trust Administration and Nonprofit groups. He concentrates his practice on federal, state and international tax matters (both planning and controversy), estate and wealth preservation planning, probate and trust administration, nonprofit organizations, and business counseling and succession planning. Paul helps his clients by putting complicated tax issues into simple English. He makes sure that the individuals, businesses and international clients he services have help navigating our complex tax systems and avoid potential minefields such as increased levels taxation and/or penalties.
Paul’s international...

Alan Mark is a Co-Chair of the firm’s Real Estate and Chair of the Financial Services practice groups. He is also a senior member of the Corporate group. For more than 40 years, Alan has concentrated on corporate, commercial and real estate finance matters. He has served as outside counsel to numerous local, regional and national financial institutions, publicly traded biotechnology companies and hotel owners and operators. He has also served as outside counsel to information and telecommunication technology clients, government entities and individuals in connection with technology transfers, business acquisitions, project development and equity and debt financings. Since 1996,...

Jeffrey Kolender chairs the firm’s Estate Planning and Estate & Trust Administration practice groups. He concentrates primarily in those areas and also advises small businesses in tax business planning. Jeffrey recognizes that each client is different and enjoys the challenge of creating a plan that accomplishes the client’s unique goals. He advises clients about adequately providing for their family, including saving taxes, creating trusts for children, planning for disability, and the special planning issues involved in second marriages and same-sex marriages.
He understands that estate planning can be a complex and emotional process for clients. Jeffrey always takes the time to...

For more than 30 years Dan Hodin has advised businesses and individuals in commercial and residential real estate and loan transactions, including acquiring, financing, developing, owning, leasing, managing and selling real estate. Co-chair of the firm’s Real Estate practice, he has represented local, national and international real estate developers, builders, owners, and office and retail tenants in conjunction with prominent real estate projects including hotels, office buildings, condominiums, apartment complexes and shopping centers located throughout the United States.
Dan knows that responsiveness and organization in the fast-paced world of real estate are key to keeping clients satisfied. He instills confidence in...

Wayne Eig refers to himself as a business and tax lawyer for individuals and closely held entities, providing advice to clients involved in various business, investment, financial and succession planning activities. Sometimes, his clients are individuals or families, sometimes entities and often a combination of individuals/families and affiliated entities working together. Sometimes, these businesses have great value, sometimes they do not – but all of these clients have needs which require legal attention.
Over the course of his career, Wayne has chaired some of the firm’s major practice groups – Estate & Trust Administration, Estate Planning, Tax, and Corporate. In forty...

Luke is a career Criminal Defense Attorney in the State of Maryland having practiced criminal defense since 1997, after receiving a Bachelor from Reed College and a JD from Northwestern School of Law. He started his career as a DOJ law clerk for the landmark racketeering case against the tobacco industry, while serving as a JAG officer in the US Army Reserves. After those positions in the early 2000s, Luke centered his practice exclusively in DUI and criminal defense, including juvenile court, in multiple jurisdictions in Maryland, gaining trial experience through representation of clients in thousands cases in District,...

I am an American Citizen admitted to The Maryland Bar, Washington DC and The New york Bar as Attorney and Counselor at Law. I belong to New york , DC and Maryland Bar Associations. Holds a Masters Degree in Law from the George Washington University Law School specializing in Litigation and Alternative Dispute Resolution. First Admitted to The Supreme court of Nigeria in 1989 as a Lawyer. Worked with a British Oil company for several years as Legal and Community affairs Manager. Over 26 years combined experience in corporate practice and the Oil sector in Nigeria and will readily...

Anu B. Kemet, a co-founder of Kemet Hunt Law Group, practices law in the areas of construction law, business development, civil litigation, bankruptcy, and personal injury. Mr. Kemet heads the firm’s business law practice, including start-ups, construction litigation, franchise negotiations, labor relations and contracts. He is responsible for a diverse caseload with substantial litigation experience. Prior to his career as an attorney, Anu served honorably in the United States Army, held the chief operating officer position for a private elementary school, and co-founded Delights of the Garden, the first full service raw food vegan restaurant chain in the U.S. Mr. Kemet...

Compassionate. Zealous. Aggressive Attorney focussed on criminal defense, Immigration and Family Law. Proven Results. Voted Top 100 Criminal Defense Lawyers in Maryland by the National Trial Lawyers. Licensed in both Maryland and Florida.

We focus on prompt responses on a human level to clients' legal needs. We have had forty years experience in a broad range of legal issues involving individuals, small businesses and real estate developers. We work with individual property owners to develop, sell and purchase residential and commercial property.

Jennifer M. Alonso was born and raised in New Jersey. She attended private schools throughout her life, and later lived in various parts of the United States as the spouse of military member. She graduated cum laude from the University of Colorado and Rutgers University School of Law, and spent her last year at University of North Carolina School of Law, where she also made Dean’s List. Ms. Alonso has been practicing law since 2002, and in the beginning of her career, worked in personal injury, worker’s compensation, and surety law. After being mentored by a seasoned immigration practitioner with...

Steve Thienel is an attorney and managing member of Thienel Law Firm, a Maryland law firm dedicated to servicing the needs of professionals and business owners. In his law practice, Steve focuses his practice on a full spectrum of legal services in the areas of tax, business, estate planning, and family law matters to maximize client opportunities while preserving wealth. He represents entrepreneurs, investors, business owners, executives, and professionals in both litigation and transactional matters. Steve is an entrepreneur and business owner himself having been a business consultant, academic, and corporate executive prior to starting his own law practice.

For more than 40 years, Art House has been working with businesses of all types as a corporate lawyer and litigator. He chairs the firm’s Science & Technology and Alternative Dispute Resolution practice groups, and is a member of the Corporate practice group. Art brings responsiveness and an ability to offer practical solutions to his clients, understanding that his clients’ business needs drive the deals, not the lawyer.
Art’s background in enterprise development, licensing for technology-based companies and assisting both established and start-up businesses in developing legal, business alliance and acquisition strategies gives him unique insight into the real-world problems facing...

Heidi Boas has dedicated her legal career to assisting asylum-seekers, refugees, and other immigrants through her work with the U.S. Government, United Nations, and non-profit organizations.

Ms. Boas joined Wilkes Legal in 2018 after four years of government service with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and the Department of State. From 2014-2017, Ms. Boas worked at the Arlington Asylum Office, where she adjudicated the asylum claims of applicants from around the world. As a Senior Asylum Officer, Ms. Boas handled complex applications for asylum, including long-pending cases involving national security and terrorism-related issues. Ms. Boas also managed a team of...