Our Baltimore Law Office

The Baltimore office of Sanford Heisler Sharp is committed to justice, equality, and protecting human rights in the workplace and in our communities.

“The basic expectation of employees is, or should be, that our workplaces will be hospitable to human life. We will all get old. We will all have times of disability. Our job is to ensure that people can be human at work.” – Attorney Deborah K. Marcuse

Established in 2018, our Baltimore office aims to serve as a resource for everyone in our community.

At Sanford Heisler Sharp we know that when companies and organizations create workplaces that accommodate human life, everyone wins.

With eight offices across the country, Sanford Heisler Sharp is committed to litigating and resolving public interest, social justice, and civil rights matters that significantly impact the lives of individuals, groups, and communities wronged by unlawful practices. We help people and communities defend their civil and human rights. Together, we work to move the law closer toward justice, for all of us.

Our Practice Areas

The Baltimore office of Sanford Heisler Sharp helps individuals and organizations fight for justice in the face of:

• Unlawful discrimination and harassment
• Failure to accommodate disabilities, including pregnancy
• Retaliation
• Pay inequity
• Wage theft and other wage and hour violations
• Excessive force and police brutality
• Sexual harassment and assault
• Wrongful termination
• Discriminatory housing practices
• Violence due to the use of ghost guns
• Hate crimes

In Baltimore and beyond, we know that victims of crime from under-served communities sometimes face unfair treatment from the very people and institutions who are supposed to protect and serve them. When law enforcement and other state and local agencies fail to fairly prosecute sexual assault and other criminal cases, we provide trauma-informed, healing-centered advocacy for survivors and the surviving families of homicide victims.

Our Work

Sanford Heisler Sharp Partner and Criminal/Sexual Violence Practice Group Co-Chair Steve Kelly, a lifelong Baltimore resident, has spent the last three decades advocating for survivors:

• Steve has been recognized for his leadership in the legal community as an advocate for children and adult survivors of sexual and other types of violence by the Maryland Governor, the Baltimore Child Abuse Center, the Maryland Crime Victims Resource Center, the Baltimore Judicial Nominating Commission, and other organizations.
• Steve has successfully fought for stronger protections for crime victim rights through the Crime Victims’ Rights Act of 2004 and 2006; Masha’s Laws, 18 U.S.C 2255; reforms to criminal restitution statutes; and improvements to victim witness relocation programs in Maryland.
• As an advocate for justice focused on the particular challenges faced by low-income victims of crime and other underserved groups, Steve has championed laws to reform our criminal system, including laws that decriminalize low-level offenses and promote alternative sentencing and early release for people convicted of nonviolent offenses.
• Firm Managing Partner and Baltimore Managing Partner Deborah K. Marcuse, a native of Washington, DC, loves her adopted city of Baltimore, where she has lived with her family since establishing the Baltimore office of Sanford Heisler Sharp in 2018 as its first Managing Partner. A trial lawyer with the heart of a clinical professor, Deborah takes every opportunity she can find to teach workers and other humans in Baltimore and beyond about their rights under the law.

For the past several years, Deborah has been Co-Chair of the Class & Collective Actions Practice Group of the National Employment Lawyers’ Association (NELA), an organization dedicated to empowering workers’ rights attorneys through legal training, promoting a fair judiciary, and advocating for laws and policies that level the playing field for workers.

Office Location

Our office is located in the heart of the city in downtown Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. We are in the Harbor Place Tower building, across from the National Aquarium and the World Trade Center. By design, our office is easily accessible via public transit; we are also a short (free!) Charm City Circulator bus ride away from Baltimore Penn Station.

Office Hours

Our normal office hours are Monday to Friday, from 9:30 am to 6:30 pm. Please contact us to schedule a meeting that is convenient for you. We are happy to connect with potential clients in-person at our office or by video using Teams or Zoom.

Our Philosophy

Clients at the Baltimore office benefit from our local roots and nationwide reach. Baltimore attorneys and legal assistants work closely with our colleagues in the firm’s eight offices around the country.  From Steve’s expertise representing survivors at the intersection of the criminal and civil law systems to Deborah’s work at the intersection of cutting-edge legal theory and client-centered practice, we offer plaintiffs an uncommon breadth and depth of legal experience.

Our strong partnerships with local nonprofit organizations, experts in mental health, and grassroots, community-centered partners, in Baltimore and across the country, help us offer our clients a holistic and humane approach to negotiation and, when necessary, litigation.

Pro Bono Work

Attorney Steve Kelly provides pro bono support to individuals and organizations through the University of Maryland ROAR Center, which he co-founded with Lydia Watts.

Steve also volunteers with Mothers Against Drunk Driving Maryland chapter, the Maryland Coalition Against Sexual Assault (MCASA), the Baltimore Child Abuse Center and the National Association of Justice Maryland Chapter.

Attorney Deborah K. Marcuse works with organizations including the ACLU of Maryland, the ACLU Immigrant Rights’ Project (IRP), and the Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights Coalition (CAIR Coalition). As firm Managing Partner, Deborah is always looking for new ways to strengthen the firm’s collaboration with community-based organizations fighting for social justice.

Notable Cases

Our Baltimore team has successfully handled many notable cases, including:

• Rapuano et al v. Dartmouth, a landmark Title IX class action lawsuit against Dartmouth College brought on behalf of current and former female graduate students and undergraduates in Dartmouth’s Department of Psychology and Brain Sciences.
• Resolving through confidential settlement a race and gender discrimination case brought on behalf of the former head of Valuation & Advisory for global commercial real estate behemoth Cushman & Wakefield.
• In partnership with the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project, the ACLU of Maryland and the Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights Coalition, secured a preliminary injunction for a proposed class challenging unconstitutional bond hearing policies and practices of the Baltimore Immigration Court.

COVID-19 Protocols

We strive to accommodate your needs and expectations for our meeting. We can meet masked or unmasked, depending on local COVID levels and the comfort levels of our clients and our staff. Our office is sanitized daily.

Contact Us To Get Started

Please contact our Baltimore office to learn how we can help you in an employment, civil rights, or related legal matter.

Testimonial

“You Helped Me at a Time When I Needed It Most”

The entire team, [including] Deborah [and] Saba . . . worked tirelessly on my behalf. They are an incredibly effective team and obtained a good result for me in mediation, but, most importantly, they were beyond compassionate. Thanks . . .  for keeping me in the loop and staying on top of everything. You made mediation so much more bearable. And Deborah, you have no idea how much you did for me – not only did you achieve a great result, you helped me at a time when I needed it most, and there wasn’t a single moment that you didn’t fully understand exactly how I was feeling. You helped me get my life back, and I will never forget that. – Am Law 100 Partner