Our Work

The Murnaghan Fellowship was founded in recognition of the fact that, notwithstanding the profound importance of appellate courts in the development of American law, people from poor and marginalized communities very often lack the resources to pursue litigation all the way through appeal, and that, when cases affecting the interests of these communities do reach the appellate courts, the broader implications of the case are not always made clear. For over 20 years, Murnaghan Fellows have addressed this vital need, representing parties who might otherwise be unable to afford legal representation, as well as amici curiae (friends of the court) who seek to assist the court in understanding the importance of the legal issues presented in a case and the case’s potential impact on under-represented communities.

The Murnaghan Fellowship is deeply rooted in Baltimore and Maryland, but we also recognize that issues faced by people from poor and marginalized communities in our state are rarely unique. Our fellows work with advocates across the country in identifying key issues in civil rights and poverty law and in giving voice to the interests of under-represented communities in appellate courts.

Since the establishment of the Murnaghan Fellowship in 2001, fellows have appeared in more than 200 cases. More than 100 of these cases have been in Maryland’s state appellate courts, and several dozen have been in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, where Judge Murnaghan served. Beyond these cases in local courts, fellows have also authored briefs in the U.S. Supreme Court and in the majority of the federal appellate courts across the country, as well as in the supreme courts of a number of other states. Nearly all of our fellows have had the opportunity to argue a case during their fellowship, and a number of fellows have presented oral argument in multiple cases.

In consultation with the legal director at the Public Justice Center, fellows have substantial latitude to shape their work during their fellowship year, and past fellows have worked in a wide range of subject areas within the fields of poverty law and civil rights law. Nonetheless, our fellows’ work has tended to concentrate in certain areas and on certain themes. These include workers’ rights, the rights of people with disabilities, the protection of immigrants, and racial justice and equity, including in the criminal justice system.

Worker’s Rights

Fellows have frequently sought to ensure that the law’s protections against wage theft and other abuses are meaningfully available to low-wage workers and immigrant workers. For example, in Peters v. Early Healthcare Giver, Inc., 439 Md. 646 (2014), 2013-14 Murnaghan Fellow Ilana Gelfman [JA1] represented a home health aide seeking to recover wrongfully withheld overtime wages. Ilana persuaded the Court of Appeals of Maryland, the state’s highest court, to recognize both that Maryland law allows for the recovery of wrongfully denied overtime payments and that lower courts must apply a standard favorable to workers in deciding whether to award treble damages for wrongfully withheld wages. To date, the decision in Peters has been cited by courts in more than 75 other cases, including in Amaya v. DGS Construction, LLC, --- Md. ---- (2022), where the Court of Appeals held that Maryland law may require compensation for time spent by construction workers, many of them immigrants, in transit between a construction site and the parking lot where they were required to report for work, and that Maryland law is more protective of workers than the federal Portal-to-Portal Act in this respect. In the Amaya case, 2019-20 Murnaghan Fellow Dena Robinson and 2021-22 Fellow Michael Abrams filed amicus curiae briefs that highlighted, among other things, the implications of the issue presented for workers in the construction industry and the importance of the court’s earlier decision in Peters.

Our fellows’ history of advocating for the rights of workers goes back to the inception of the fellowship. 2002-03 Murnaghan Fellow Wendy Hess authored an amicus brief in the landmark case of Ocheltree v. Scollon Productions, Inc., 335 F.3d 325 (4th Cir. 2003), where the Fourth Circuit sitting en banc upheld a jury verdict in favor of an employee who had sued for sexual harassment and established important legal standards in the resolution of Title VII cases. The Ocheltree decision has been cited in more than 600 cases. In Design Kitchen and Bath v. Lagos, 388 Md. 718 (2005), the Maryland Court of Appeals held that the protections of the state’s Worker's Compensation Act extend to undocumented workers, quoting from an amicus brief written by 2003-04 Murnaghan Fellow Joshua Auerbach.

Access to Housing

In the area of housing, our fellows have often argued to strengthen the law’s protections both for tenants and for low- and moderate-income homeowners. For example, in Lockett v. Blue Ocean Bristol, LLC, 446 Md. 397 (2016), 2014-15 Murnaghan Fellow Anna Jagelewski and 2015-16 Murnaghan Fellow Tassity Johnson represented a tenant whose lease was terminated after she took a leadership role in advocating for the rights of her fellow tenants in her apartment building and whose landlord had then instituted a tenant holding over action against her. Anna and Tassity persuaded the Maryland Court of Appeals to reverse in part a lower court ruling, to establish more favorable standards for tenants seeking protection from retaliatory conduct by landlords, to hold that tenants who are current on their regular rent payments are entitled to protection under Maryland’s anti-retaliation statute even if they have not paid disputed additional charges imposed on them by their landlords, and to require lower courts to state their reasoning when they deny requests for attorney’s fees by tenants who have been the victims of retaliation.

n Wheeling v. Selene Finance LP, three Murnaghan Fellows—K’Shaani Smith (2017-18), Ejaz Baluch, Jr. (2018-19), and Olivia Sedwick (2020-21)–represented, through two rounds of appeal in the Maryland appellate courts, homeowners and a tenant against whom eviction proceedings had wrongfully been initiated. Ultimately, the Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the residents, reversed the lower courts, and held that Maryland’s Consumer Protection Act protects against the wrongful initiation of an eviction even when tenants and homeowners are not ultimately evicted, and that tenants and homeowners may recover for emotional injuries caused by the threatened loss of their homes. 473 Md. 356 (2021). The Wheeling court also interpreted statutory language in Maryland’s Real Property Article protecting the rights of tenants that was originally drafted by Public Justice Center lawyer Matthew Hill, who refined his interest in housing law during his year as the 2008-09 Murnaghan Fellow, and who now serves as the lead attorney in the PJC’s Human Right to Housing Project.

Access to housing has been a consistent focus of our fellows’ work. For example, in Johnson v. Housing Authority of Jefferson Parish, 442 F.3d 356 (5th Cir. 2006), where the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held, in a widely-cited decision, that public housing tenants who had been denied adequate assistance to pay their utility bills had a private right of action under federal law, 2004-05 Murnaghan Fellow Beth Mellen authored an amicus brief on behalf of a coalition of national housing advocacy organizations and the AARP Foundation Litigation.

Disability Rights

Advocacy on behalf of people with disabilities, particular those who come from low-income and marginalized communities, has also been a recurrent focus. In Daniels v. Arcade, L.P., 477 Fed. Appx. 125 (2012), 2010-11 Murnaghan Fellow Jessie Webber represented a customer who had been unable to gain access to Lexington Market, a well-known landmark on Baltimore’s west side, because of its lack of adequate access for people who use wheelchairs. After a lower court had dismissed the customer’s case, Jessie stepped in to persuade the Fourth Circuit that the customer had stated a claim under the Americans with Disabilities Act. The court’s decision in Daniels has been cited more than 60 times in cases concerning the rights of people with disabilities.

In In re Adoption Nos. J9610436 and J9711031, 368 Md. 666 (2002), a case involving the termination of the parental rights of a low-income father with cognitive disabilities, 2001-02 Murnaghan Fellow Lewis Yelin filed an amicus brief on behalf of a coalition of disability rights organizations. In its decision, the Maryland Court of Appeals reversed the rulings of the lower courts, recognizing the profound importance of the relationship between parent and child and holding that, in providing reunification services to parents with disabilities, state child welfare agencies must provide services tailored to the unique needs of each parent, including parents with disabilities.

Race Equity

In drafting friend-of-the-court briefs, fellows have often highlighted the impact of the issues to be decided by courts on communities of color. In recent years, fellows have often submitted such briefs in cases involving systemic inequities in our criminal justice and immigration systems. For example, in Bradds v. Randolph, a case involving a lower court’s denial of a petition for pretrial release, K’Shaani Smith authored an amicus curiae brief to the Maryland Court of Special Appeals on behalf of a coalition of Maryland advocacy and community organizations highlighting the disparate, wide-ranging and deeply harmful impact of unaffordable bail on communities of color, including the consequences of pretrial detention for the dependents and families of those unnecessarily detained and the pressure to plead guilty that unnecessary detention imposes. The appellate court, interpreting a new Maryland rule, held that lower courts, in setting a bail amount, must consider the accused person’s financial resources and ability to pay and may only impose bail or other financial conditions of release as a last resort. 239 Md. App. 50 (2018).

In B.C. v. Barr, in which a Cameroonian immigrant who primarily spoke an English-based creole language sought court review of the denial of his application for asylum in administrative proceedings during which he was not provided with an interpreter, 2019-20 Murnaghan Fellow Dena Robinson authored an amicus brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on behalf of a national coalition of immigrants’ rights groups. Dena’s brief documented the ways in which racial, cultural and linguistic biases have long distorted immigration law and policy, as well as the impact of racial bias and trauma on the credibility determinations that are critical to asylum proceedings. Ultimately, the Third Circuit held that the government’s failure to provide an interpreter had violated the immigrant’s due process rights. 12 F.4th 306 (3d Cir. 2021).

Outside the Appellate Courts

The basic skills of appellate advocacy—legal research and analysis, and the development and articulation of persuasive arguments—are applicable in other settings. Most of our fellows have had the opportunity to work with other lawyers, including other staff at the Public Justice Center, on litigation strategy and the development of arguments in trial court litigation and to support advocacy in other settings, including in legislative bodies and administrative agencies. For example, Dena Robinson advocated in the Maryland General Assembly in favor of legislation, ultimately enacted into law, prohibiting discrimination against people wearing their hair in styles associated with communities of color. 2007-08 Murnaghan Fellow Gregory Care testified in the General Assembly in favor of legislation, also ultimately enacted, reforming Maryland’s tax sale foreclosure system to address longstanding inequities, including unfairly inflated attorney’s fees that had prevented low-income homeowners from redeeming their homes after falling behind on water bills, property taxes, and other debts, often in very small amounts, to local governments.

Our Work

Our Work

Location/Contact

Sitemap