August 6, 2009
Baltimore City,
Maryland –
MHBA
Announces Keynote Speakers
Maryland Lieutenant Governor Anthony G. Brown and Thomas
A. Saenz, President & General Counsel
Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund
(MALDEF), will be Keynote Speakers
next September 24, at the Maryland Hispanic Bar
Association’s Sixteenth Anniversary Gala.
Anthony G. Brown was inaugurated as Maryland’s 8th
lieutenant governor on January 17, 2007.
Lieutenant Governor Brown has a distinguished career in
public service. Governor Martin O’Malley appointed Mr. Brown
as Chair of the Governor’s Base Realignment and Closing (BRAC)
Subcabinet. The Lieutenant Governor plays a leading role in
the Administration’s efforts on higher education, veterans’
affairs, domestic violence prevention, workforce creation
and health care. Prior to his election as Maryland’s 8th
lieutenant governor, he was a member of the Maryland House
of Delegates, where he served as the Majority Whip. Brown
also served four years on the
Board of
Trustees at Prince George’s Community College before joining
the House of Delegates.
Lieutenant Governor Brown is a Harvard-educated attorney.
As Second Lieutenant in the United States Army, Mr. Brown
served a tour of duty in Germany as a helicopter pilot with
the 4th Combat Aviation Brigade, 3rd
Infantry Division. In 2005, Lt. Governor Brown deployed with
the 353rd Civil Affairs Command in support of
Operation Iraqi Freedom, serving with distinction in
Baghdad, Fallujah, Kirkuk and Basra. He continues to serve
in the United States Army Reserves. In December 2007, Mr.
Brown was promoted to the rank of Colonel in the United
States Army Reserves and commands the 153rd Legal
Support Organization.
Thom
as
A. Saenz was named President and General Counsel of the
Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund on July
14, 2009.
In August
2005, Mr. Saenz became Counsel to the Mayor of the City of
Los Angeles, serving as a member of Mayor Antonio
Villaraigosa’s executive team and providing legal and policy
advice to the mayor until he takes over his new position at
MALDEF.
Previously, Mr. Saenz practiced civil rights litigation at
MALDEF, a national organization dedicated to securing and
promoting the civil rights of Latinos in the United States.
Mr. Saenz joined
MALDEF as
a staff attorney in 1993; he became Los Angeles Regional
Counsel in 1996, National Senior Counsel in 2000, and Vice
President of Litigation in 2001.
As Vice
President of Litigation, Mr. Saenz oversaw MALDEF’s civil
rights litigation efforts nationwide in the areas of
educational equity, employment discrimination, political
access and voting rights, immigrants’ rights, and public
resource equity. For example, he served as MALDEF’s lead
counsel in successfully challenging California’s Proposition
187 in court; as such, he presented extensive written and
oral arguments on numerous occasions in three different
cases involving the anti-immigrant initiative. He was also
MALDEF’s lead counsel in two court challenges to Proposition
227, the English-only education initiative that voters
enacted in 1998, and he successfully challenged several
ordinances barring day laborers from soliciting employment.
Mr. Saenz
was born and raised in southern California. He graduated
summa cum laude from Yale University and received his law
degree from Yale Law School. He was law clerk to the
Honorable Harry L. Hupp of the U.S. District Court for the
Central District of California and to the Honorable Stephen
Reinhardt of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth
Circuit. For eight years, Saenz taught “Civil Rights
Litigation” as an adjunct lecturer at the U.S.C. Law School.
He currently serves on the Los Angeles County Board of
Education, and has previously served on the Los Angeles
County Commission on Human Relations.
MHBA
members are attorneys, law students, and paralegals of
Hispanic/Latino descent or who have an interest in the
issues that affect the Hispanic/Latino community in the
State of Maryland and are dedicated to serve the public
interest by cultivating the science of jurisprudence,
promoting reform in the law, facilitating the administration
of justice, fostering respect of the law among the
Hispanic/Latino community, advancing the standing of the
legal profession, preserving high standards of integrity,
honor, and professional courtesy among attorneys, and
establishing closer relationships among Hispanic/Latino
attorneys and those legal professionals who have an interest
in the Hispanic/Latino community.
Typically, MHBA Gala audience includes representatives of
the Maryland and federal judiciary, the Maryland state
government, specialty bar associations, nonprofit community
organizations and the state and local Hispanic Chambers of
Commerce representatives, among many others.
The 2009 MHBA Gala
event will be held on Thursday, September 24, 2009 from 6:00
p.m. to 9:30 p.m. at
Martin’s Crosswinds, Greenbelt, Maryland.
A Tango dance performance and Silent Auction will be
featured.
For more
information, reservations, and sponsorship opportunities,
please visit the MHBA,
http://marylandhispanicbar.com or contact Sylvia
Ontaneda-Bernales,
sontaned@ober.com.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Dec. 3, 2008
Contact:
Joseph L. Morales, Esquire
Whiteford, Taylor & Preston, L.L.P.
Seven Saint Paul Street
Baltimore, MD 21202
Direct Dial: (410) 659-6428
jmorales@wtplaw.com
Maryland Hispanic Bar Association
Elects Officers
Baltimore, MD.--The
Maryland Hispanic Bar Association (MHBA) recently installed
Joseph L. Morales, Esq. as its new President and Sylvia Ontaneda-Bernales, Esq. as President-Elect. The group also
seated new members of its board of directors who joined the
MHBA leadership at its recent Gala commemorating Hispanic
Heritage Month.
A former Blackhawk
helicopter pilot with the Maryland Army National Guard, Mr.
Morales, who emigrated from Bogota, Colombia, is looking
forward to a year of increased collaboration between the
Maryland Hispanic Bar Association and other organizations
that have an impact on the legal profession and the Latino
community in the state. He serves as registered patent
attorney with Whiteford, Taylor & Preston, L.L.P. in
Baltimore and handles intellectual property matters ranging
from drafting and prosecuting patent and trademark
applications to negotiating licensing agreements. Mr.
Morales takes the helm of the Maryland Hispanic Bar
Association for the 2008-2009 year at a time when issues in
the Hispanic community in Maryland are increasingly coming
under a microscope. "I am committed the organization’s
mission of providing a voice to the Latino community in th e
State of Maryland as it concerns the administration of
justice, cultivating the science of jurisprudence, promoting
reform in the law, fostering respect of the law among
Hispanics," said Mr. Morales. The MHBA's goals also include
advancing the standing of the legal profession, preserving
high standards of integrity, honor, and professional
courtesy among Hispanic lawyers, establishing a close
relationship among Hispanic lawyers, and cooperating with
bar associations nationally and internationally and other
legal organizations. Mr. Morales serves on the board of the
Maryland Hispanic Chamber of Commerce; as a member of the
Baltimore City Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the American
Intellectual Property Law Association; International
Trademark Association; Maryland State Bar Association,
Intellectual Property Law Section and the American Bar
Association, Intellectual Property Law Section.
Serving as President-Elect
is Sylvia Ontaneda-Bernales, Esq. with the law firm of Ober,
Kaler, Grimes and Shriver in Baltimore. Originally from
Peru, Sylvia Ontaneda-Bernales, Esq., focuses her practice
on immigration matters and complex civil litigation. She
assists U.S. employers in obtaining lawful immigration
status and employment authorization for foreign nationals
and work on health law issues relating to Medicaid pricing
policies for pharmaceuticals. Appointed to the Maryland
Health Care Commission in 2007 by Maryland Governor Martin
O’Malley, Sylvia was also named one of 2008 Maryland’s Top
100 Women by The Daily Record. She holds memberships in the
Baltimore City Bar Association and the Maryland Women’s Bar
Association. She is also member of the American Immigration
Lawyers Association, the Maryland Immigrant Rights Coalition
and the Immigration Law Section of the Maryland State Bar
Association, and she is editor of the section’s newsletter,
The Monitor.
New officers and
board of directors for the 2008-2009 year include:
Maria De L. Mojica, Esq.,
Treasurer, Whiteford, Taylor & Preston, L.L.P., Baltimore
Diego Rojas, Esq.,
Secretary, Stein, Sperling, Bennett, De Jong, Driscoll &
Greenfeig, P.C., Rockville.
Bettina T. Guevara, Esq.,
Immediate Past-President, Miles & Stockbrige, Baltimore
Directors:
Mayda Colon-Tsaknis, Esq.,
Colon-Tsaknis Law Office, Rockville, Frederick Abraham
Fernando Carpio, Esq.
Patricia Chiriboga-Roby,
Esq., World Relief Baltimore Immigration Clinic, Baltimore
Audrey Creighton, Esq.,
State of Maryland, Office of the Public Defender, Montgomery
County District and adjunct professor in the Trial Advocacy
Program at American University's Washington College of Law.
Patricia Arzuaga, Kaiser
Foundation Health Plans, Inc., Rockville.
Neil J. Fagan, Esquire, is
in private practice in Columbia, MD.
Elizabeth Ysla Leight,
Esq., of Laurel is Director of Government Relations and
Legal Affairs, Society of Professional Benefit
Administrators. She serves on the Governor's Commission on
Hispanic Affairs.
Felipe Santo Domingo-Armas,
Esq., LeViness, Tolzman & Hamilton P.A., Baltimore
Joaquin Manuel Sequeira,
Esq., PKHammar Legal, PC.
Nelson Garcia, Esq.,
Thyden, Gross & Callahan, Chevy Chase.
Julio Morales, Esq., Law
Offices of Jose A. Trevino, Greenbelt.
Available upon request:
Photos of Joe Morales, Esq. and Sylvia Ontaneda-Bernales,
Esq.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Dec. 3, 2008
Contact:
Joseph L. Morales, Esquire
Whiteford, Taylor & Preston, L.L.P.
Seven Saint Paul Street
Baltimore, MD 21202
Direct Dial: (410) 659-6428
jmorales@wtplaw.com
