Monday, June 8, 2009 • MARYLAND LAWYER • Page
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with one of his buddies on the truck.” After that first semester, he said, “Ithought, ‘This isn’t so bad.’” (It’s some-thing of a catch phrase for him.)In college, with a double major ineconomics and finance, he honed hisknack for numbers and developed alove of playing the market. Thoughhe’d taken a business law class and theLSATs, he was taken with the idea of being a stockbroker.That lasted for precisely one earlyinterview in college, with “the big guy”at a big-name brokerage.“And the big guy said, ‘Well, youknow, your resume’s very impressive, very good grades, economics andfinance, blah blah blah, but where’s all your marketing courses?’ And I said,‘Well, I took the required courses, butaren’t we here to talk about economicsand finance?’“And he said, ‘NO. This is All. About.Marketing. We tell you what to sell thecustomer, you do the selling. This is allabout sales. Sales. Sales. Sales.’”He stops, as if he’s still trying tocomprehend what the man said.“At that moment, I knew I did notwant to be a stockbroker. At least notat that company,” he added. And so it was that the next leaderof the state bar association finallychose the law — the career his motherswears was his first choice all along.“She says she still has some littlebook I filled out in second grade thatsays I wanted to be a lawyer,” he said.
Making some noise
As Cardaro shares that tidbit, hesounds skeptical. The Rockville hegrew up in is different from its imagetoday, he explained.“Growing up where I did, not many people’s parents had college educa-tions,” he said. “Not only did I notknow what lawyers did, I didn’t knowwhat white-collar workers did. It was aworking-class neighborhood; I knewwhat laborers did and carpenters didand plumbers did and electricians did.Ionly really knew what Perry Masondid because I saw him on TV.”Though he’s now a civil litigator inhis own Baltimore firm, with an officehigh over Charles Street, those whoknow him say he’s hung onto hisdown-to-earth values.“In Yiddish, we’d say
hamishe
,which means he’s very warm, like fam-ily,” said Robert D. Anbinder.“Absolutely unpretentious.” He andCardaro have worked together at theMSBA, where Anbinder is on theboard of governors, and at the
Bar Association of Baltimore City
,where Cardaro was president from2004-2005.It’s fair to say that Cardaro is lesswell-known than many of his prede-cessors as state bar president, Anbinder said.“Because of his style, he doesn’tmake headlines,” he said.But that doesn’t mean he won’tmake a little noise.One of his oldest friends, Robert D.“Rob” Earle, remembers the year inthe late 1990s they rode to the MSBA Annual Meeting in Ocean City on theirHarleys.“We were the only ones on bikes,and we went out of our way to makeourselves known,” said Earle, of coun-sel at
Whiteford, Taylor & Preston
in Columbia. When you get a Harley,the first thing you do is change theexhaust to be louder, he said.“I’m sure nobody expected thatHarley-riding lawyer would be the bar president some day, and I feel like thebar will be the better for it.”Earle, at 52 just a few years olderthan Cardaro, attended communitycollege with him and transferred to theUniversity of Maryland at the sametime. They used to commute togetherand quiz each other, since they had thesame major.“I had to drag him through punchcards,” Earle said, referring to therequired coursework in the computersof the day. “That was the only problemhe had” with economics and finance.
Microcosm
As it happens, his double major hasserved Cardaro well. He’s spent mostof his career in very small firms, whereahead for numbers may not guaranteesuccess but a lack of one will almostcertainly guarantee failure. And if ever there were a good yearfor an MSBA president with a back-ground in economics, this would be it. Asked how the downturn will affecthis presidency, Cardaro responded,“Quite dramatically.”He points to an April news storythat estimated there were “some31,000” lawyers out of work.“With this region being so lawyer-intensive, that has to be affecting us,”he said.“Now, I don’t know that we can fixall the problems,” he added. “I mean, jiminy, we have the G-20 trying to fixthe economy’s problems. Nobody canturn this around overnight. But by thesame token, if you don’t start on somescale, you’re never going to do any-thing about it. So we’re looking atsome things we can do on a micro-cosm level, for our members, to helpthem along.”For starters, this president askswhat the MSBA can do for its mem-bers, not what they can do for theMSBA.“For so many years, we’ve asked somuch,” he said. “Giving pro bono ser- vice, giving their time … giving pro-grams, giving lectures, giving money, just giving of themselves. While I don’twant to diminish that — I want those programs to continue — right now, ourmembers need us. There are so manyattorneys out there, so many memberswho are either underemployed orunemployed, they need our help.”He’s come up with a jobs plan thatmay be foreign to lawyers, but that anylaid-off Teamster might recognize.“I call it RPM,” Cardaro said.
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“R” is for retraining. “You might havelawyers who have been out there 20 years and perfectly competent; they just need a little training to switchover to a new area where they couldmake a difference,” he said.Cardaro does not see this as step- ping on the turf of the continuing legaleducation programs offered byMICPEL.“Look, the idea is that we need toget the [MSBA] members in a positionto compete out there as best we can,and we’re going to do whatever’s nec-essary to get that done,” he said. “We’llwork together with MICPEL, whateverstatus they’re in,” though the programswill be offered by MSBA.
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“P” is for practical skills, the kind of thing addressed at the MSBA’s recent“Suddenly Solo” program. Lawyerswho’ve been laid off think they canalways hang up their shingle, but“they’ve never had to worry aboutnegotiating a lease, buying malprac-tice insurance, setting up an escrowaccount,” he said.Even though he’d been a partnerfor seven of the nine years he spentwith Bruce Klores in Washington, itwas Klores who handled all the busi-ness dealings, he said.When Cardaro started his own firmin Baltimore nearly 10 years ago —with accounting and administrativehelp from his wife Sue, Earle noted —the hardest part was dealing with“those nuts and bolts things they neverteach you in law school,” he said.“Buying all your supplies, buying acopier, very practical kinds of things. Ihad clients, I had business, but buyingoffice furniture? Where do you go? …It was all new to me. Like a lot of things in life, it gets honed over time,but I wish I had a course like we offernow.”
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Mis for matching — that is, connect-ing unemployed or underemployedattorneys to those with unmet legalneeds.“Maybe they’re pro bono or lowbono clients,” Cardaro said, “but fromawellness perspective, maybe it’s bet-ter to have pro bono or low bonoclients than to have no clients on agiven Wednesday afternoon when youhave no other appointments.”Cardaro acknowledges that theRPM is very much in the planningstages, and that it is a program, not theoverarching theme of his year.The theme is “a year devoted to ourmembers,” he said.“I’m sure as implementation of thatgoes along, it’s gonna sprout into differ-ent directions…,” he said. “I can’t tell youwhat they’ll be at this moment, but thebetter sprouts will take off on their own.”
Enjoy the scenery
While the details may still be vague,another BABC leader says Cardaro isas good as his word.“Trust me, when he’s piloting theship, he knows where he’s going,” said Adam Sean Cohen, who, like Cardaro,is very active in both the city and statebar associations.“You can sit back and enjoy thescenery,” Cohen said. “It’s going to beasafe route, a scenic route, a smoothride — and when you get there, there’sgoing to be a party.”
Cardaro
>>
Ask what the MSBA can do for its members, not what they can do for it
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THOMAS C. CARDARO
Founding partner, Cardaro & Peek, July 1, 1999-Present
BACKGROUND:
Hometown, Rockville; lives in Highland. Catholic University of America, J.D., 1985; Universityof Maryland, B.S., 1982. Practiced with Klores & Cardaro, 1990-1999; Smith, Somerville & Case, 1985-1990;clerked at Donahue, Ehrmantraut and Montedonico.
FAMILY:
Wife, Sue; married 25 years this June. Three children: Tom and Emily, in college; Amy, in high school.
MENTORS:
“My dad.” Also Bill Ehrmantraut, who hired him as a law clerk, and Jack Prendergast, supervisingpartner at Smith, Somerville & Case, his first firm out of law school. “Bill and Jack were the two who reallyguided my path in the law.”
READING MATTER
:
“I’m a big newspaper reader, a news junkie.”
MOVIES:
“My favorite all-time movie for the family is ‘Uncle Buck,’ with John Candy. … The one that movedmeprobably more than any other movie I’ve ever seen was ‘Saving Private Ryan.’ My father hit the beach onD-day and he never spoke much about it, and when I saw that movie, I understood why.”
HOBBIES:
Hunting, boating, fishing, motorcycles; “love the Ravens, love the O’s. I really enjoy going to theballpark on a nice evening after work — to sit down, have a beer and a hotdog, it really doesn’t matter if theywin or not.”
MAXIMILIAN FRANZ
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