The Maryland Court of Appeals is set to hear oral argument in spring 2014 in Friolo v. Frankel. This marks the third time Maryland's highest court will be hearing issues pertaining to an award of shifted attorneys' fees for the Goldsmith Law Firm's client, Joy Friolo, who won a jury trial to prove she was cheated out of her wages and has been seeking compensation for the attorneys' fees she incurred. Ms. Friolo prevailed on both of the prior occasions, but lower courts have not yet implemented those earlier decisions completely, requiring further appeal. This latest round involves the question of whether to overturn a lower court ruling that this Firm's efforts on Ms. Friolo's behalf were excessive — even though Friolo has prevailed twice at the state's supreme court– so that the Defendant's payment for Ms. Friolo's fees should be significantly reduced. Obviously, our position is that they were not, and that the compensation should be awarded.

A great team has been assembled for amicus (friend of the court) work on the public issues at stake in the case, most notably that in order for individual Maryland employees to be able to find lawyers to represent them in wage payment cases, there must be a strong mechanism by which the wrongdoers are required to pay for the victim's fees. The amici are: the Public Justice Center, the D.C. Employment Justice Center, the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland, the National Federation of the Blind of Maryland, the Metropolitan Washington Employment Lawyers Association, and the Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs.