JFB General
Meeting
CLE coordinated by Hon. Michele Hotten
featuring Billy Murphy, Jr., Esq.
Thanks to the persistent efforts of past JFB
President, the Honorable Michele Hotten, co-chair of our CLE Committee,
we were honored to have esteemed trial attorney William
H. “Billy” Murphy,
Jr. address the J. Franklyn Bourne Bar Association on September 18
concerning lessons learned during his remarkable thirty- nine-year
career.
Billy graduated in 1965 from the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology with a BS degree in electrical engineering
and a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Maryland School
of Law in 1969, where he was also a member of the Law Review staff. He
clerked for the Chief Judge of the Maryland Court of Special Appeals
upon graduation and later entered the private practice of law.
Billy spent three years as an Associate Judge on the Circuit Court
for Baltimore City, and in private practice, has handled a myriad of
complex, high profile criminal and civil case in Maryland, Washington,
D.C., Florida, Louisiana, Georgia, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina,
Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia and the United
Kingdom.
He has received accolades from every corner
of the globe for his extraordinarily gifted strategy in the courtroom.
The Baltimore Magazine once rated him as one of the twenty five smartest
individuals in Baltimore, remarking: “When
we set out to find Baltimore’s smartest people, we were looking
for the kind of smart that turns us on: passionate, smart, sexy
smart—what we like to call drop dead brilliant…it is Murphy’s
mental agility that makes him the master defender”.
Billy’s clientele includes Microsoft; Sony; Coca-Cola; H&R
Block; Don King Productions; Merck and Company; Johnson & Johnson;
W.R. Grace & Company; the Baltimore Orioles and its owner, Peter
Angelos; the Washington Redskins and its owner, Dan Snyder. He has
represented the families of brain-damaged children in medical malpractice
suits and has successfully represented pro bono the Baltimore City
public school children and the mentally challenged school children
in state and federal courts to secure more educational funding.
Billy has received countless awards during
his illustrious career for legal excellence and advocacy, including
being named “Trial
Lawyer of the Year” by the Maryland Trial Lawyers Association “for
tireless advocacy on behalf of juveniles in the Maryland boot camps
and for protecting the rights of Maryland citizens.” One of his
crowning achievements was creating the William H. and Madeline W. Murphy
Scholarship Fund following the deaths of his parents for African American
law students who achieve scholastic excellence while attending the
University of Maryland School of Law.
Billy encouraged us to expand our horizons
in the legal and business arenas to communities beyond our neighborhoods
and borders. He has recognized that there is fertile ground in other
countries and other venues to collaborate and partner with others
in providing a gamut of legal and business services He encouraged
us to embrace these new lucrative opportunities and challenged us
to dispel any limits which are either set by others or which are
self-imposed in order to maximize the potential gold mine of these
ventures. He exhorted us to “think
outside the box”, and left us with what he believes are three
keys to success: 1) Dream big; 2) Love your clients and your
fellows; and 3) Realize that getting new business and servicing new
business are two separate and distinct skills and therefore don’t
be afraid to sign up that HUGE client. Mr. Murphy’s recommended
reading list for practitioners will be published in our next issue.
