Peter Angelos Still Works Cases?
InjuryLawyerDatabase.com went from algorithmic updates to hand updates within the last few months. A smattering of the updates come across my desk. Actually, they do the modern day equivalent and pipe through my inbox. I’m seldom surprised by what I see. If I thought a lawyer was busy and handling a lot of car accident cases, she usually was. If I thought an older workers’ comp lawyer was in the process of retiring and not filing so many appeals, he usually was. I’m seldom surprised.
However, last night, I saw an update on famed attorney and Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos. The report said in the last three years, Angelos had handled 30 cases. That, in and of itself, was not shocking. Perhaps this was a shuffling of asbestos cases. Maybe each case would have another attorney from Angelos’s office listed. I dug deeper into the individual cases.
There were numerous medical malpractice cases listed. Some were stents against St. Joes. That’s pretty standard, but still shows you that Peter Angelos gets his hands dirty. However, he’s also the only lawyer listed on a number of cases against Box Hill Surgery Center. These lawsuits are related to meningitis causing steroids.
Perhaps most surprising, Angelos is listed as the attorney in two car accident cases. One is in Baltimore City, the other in Baltimore County. One has co-counsel from his firm, the other does not. It’s a surprising thing to see, in my humble little opinion. He’s in his mid-eighties. Reportedly, he’s a billionaire.
Though he’s in his mid-eighties, he’s sharp last I knew. I had a brief conversation with him about a year and a half ago.
I’ll also use this opportunity to say, as an attorney, as a personal injury lawyer, and as someone who generally thinks corporate America, as a whole, could give a fuck about any of us, Peter Aneglos is one of my heros. Not because of the things he has done for Baltimore. Not because of his ownership of the Orioles. Not because he has political influence or a lot of money. Not even because he’s given away a lot of money.
Mostly because he says fuck you. And because he believes in the little guy’s right to be in court.
City Paper did a bio piece a long time ago on Angelos. It’s very good. It’s not available on the City Paper’s website anymore. (It is 15 years old.) Excerpts from the piece:
When talking about giving back in Baltimore…
Is this nostalgia? “There may be some of that, sure,” Angelos says. Is it about giving back? “I think so. But I don’t put it in those words. You observe, you study, and you say to yourself, This is something that should be done, that can be done. So why not get it done? Why not join others to achieve goals that benefit everyone in the community? It’s a very normal thing to want to do, I think.”
On being a lawyer and being curious…
As a lawyer, Angelos reasons, “You’ve got to be able to absorb information. You know how they talk about a quick study? You’ve got to be able to capture the essence of, say, scientific inquiry. That’s one of the reasons I may go from one thing . . . to the other. . . . If you have an inquiring mind and you’re curious about things, your comprehension comes quicker.”
And what they say about him…
“I don’t know if I’d consider Peter Angelos a friend, because it goes beyond friendship. He’s one of us,” says Ernest Grecco, president of the Metropolitan Baltimore Council AFL-CIO Unions.
Without his East Baltimore roots and the tragic legacy of the Sparrows Point shipyards, Peter Angelos would still be “just as aggressive and a good lawyer,” D’Alesandro reckons. He might even own a restaurant or two. But he wouldn’t be standing in front of a window atop one of Baltimore’s tallest office buildings, mapping out downtown’s future. And he wouldn’t generate the public intrigue that both propels and dogs him.
Credit: City Paper
The Baltimore Business Journal also published a piece on Angelos. It’s available here. By far my favorite part:
“Peter hates corporate America,” says a former associate who spent much of his adulthood working for your firm. “You hear him say it all the time. ‘Those no-good motherf—–s.’ This is a guy who wore short-sleeve shirts to work with a tie. He had his office in a blue-collar section of Baltimore. He was a peasant. A peasant who got rich. A peasant who got rich and bought a baseball team.”