Washington, DC (September 18, 2012) - Best Lawyers, the oldest and most respected peer-review publication in the legal profession, has named four Venable partners “Lawyers of the Year.” The recognized attorneys include Walter R. Calvert, Baltimore Tax Law "Lawyer of the Year," Bryson L. Cook, Baltimore Leveraged Buyouts and Private Equity Law "Lawyer of the Year,” James J. Hanks, Jr., Baltimore Corporate Governance Law "Lawyer of the Year,” and Barbara E. Schlaff, Baltimore Employee Benefits (ERISA) Law "Lawyer of the Year."
Established in 2009, “Lawyers of the Year” recognizes attorneys in high-profile legal specialties in large legal communities. Making the recognition particularly significant, only one attorney in each practice area and designated metropolitan area is honored as the “Lawyer of the Year.” According to Best Lawyers, selections are based on particularly impressive voting averages received during the exhaustive peer-review assessments conducted with thousands of leading attorneys each year.
This announcement comes less than a month after 85 Venable attorneys achieved 145 placements in 45 different areas of practice in The Best Lawyers in America® 2013.
Since it was first published in 1983, Best Lawyers has become universally regarded as the definitive guide to legal excellence. Because Best Lawyers is based on an exhaustive peer-review survey in which more than 36,000 leading attorneys cast almost 4.4 million votes on the legal abilities of other lawyers in their practice areas, and because lawyers are not required or allowed to pay a fee to be listed, inclusion in Best Lawyers is considered a singular honor. Corporate Counsel magazine has called Best Lawyers “the most respected referral list of attorneys in practice.”