The New Line

250 years ago, 260 or so Marylanders and Delawareans (legend has it at 400+) defended American rebel positions in Brooklyn, NY. Most died at arms. George Washington was so impressed with the valor of these men that his reference to them as “the Old Line” gave Maryland one of its several nicknames. Many assume that “the Old Line” refers to the Mason-Dixon Line at the north and east of the state separating Maryland from Pennsylvania’s bad roads and the farce of Delaware’s legal existence. Such is not the case.

This blog is, in a certain sense, a conservative effort. Other conservatives in Maryland will scoff at this conceit, doubly so if they know me. Some of my ancestors go back to 1743 in this odd, complicated place. I do not know whether any of them fought alongside Washington, or at Ft. McHenry, or on either side of the illegal later rebellion. Most of them, I assume, farmed and fished in an effort not to starve to death that specific year, or worked hard to care for those who did. Among my ancestors is one named for Elmer Ellsworth, the first U.S. officer killed by Confederate rebels, during the seizure of a rebel flag in Alexandria.

I was born a Maryland resident, though at a Washington, DC hospital. I have lived in Maryland my whole life, except for four years in New Jersey at college (maintaining my Maryland residency) and for one odd, unpleasant year in Washington, D.C near the end of President Bush’s last term. My legal career has mostly been here and in adjacent Washington. This place is, for better or worse, in my blood. Its indecencies plague my conscience, its frequent goodness warms my soul, its waste infuriates me (as a citizen, taxpayer and anti-waste bigot.) I do not know when I will die, but I pretty much know where.

There is a dearth of Maryland law blogs. While there are some self-serving, self-promoting “flawgs” – fake law blogs, in the term coined by New York’s Eric Turkewitz, Esq., – the blogosphere in Maryland doesn’t talk about “us” much, and certainly with little sense of history. I hope to meet that gap in small ways, with content about Maryland cases “old” and “new”, technical discussions of Maryland law and procedure, commentary about the state of the law. It will have a strongly Maryland focus, though as a U.S. state and as Washington D.C.’s neighbor on three sides, some discussion of matters Washingtonian is inevitable in any discussion of Maryland.

We should not have a servile attitude towards history; idealizing the past is as foolish as any other narcissism about ourselves. We should extend some sense of loyalty to the future as much as to the past, not to wreck if for the coming generations if we can help it. While the blog will give a lot of sunshine to the legal “Old”, it will attempt to cope with, and live up to, the “New” of now and of the years ahead. Your humble scribe was born when pay phones were state of the art.

I also hope that this blog will be useful specifically as a blog, i.e. as an instance of a semi-dying art form. Microsecond tweets (or whatever Mr. Musk calls them) have their place, but there’s value in long form, even if it be mocked as a James Brown throwback. This site will have technical tips for working lawyers – aimed at Maryland attorneys but likely of value to some practitioners nationwide. Long form, permanent form, is better for professional and technical discussions.

Welcome to the New Line.