STEPHEN PATRICK FITZGERALD April 20, 1953 Admitted to the Maryland Bar November 15, 1978 Law Practice 1978 - Present

In 1978 the population of our Country was 222,584,545; James Earl Carter, Jr. was President and Walter F. Mondale, Vice President; the cost of a first-class stamp was $.15; interest rates reach double digits; Louise Brown, the first test tube baby is born in London; Alabama was the National Collegiate Athletic Association Football Champion; Norman Rockwell and Hubert H. Humphrey died.

In 1978 the population of Charles County was 72,771 and on November 15, 1978, in Annapolis, Maryland, Stephen Patrick Fitzgerald signed his name to page 110 of the Maryland Court of Appeals Test Book certifying his admission to the practice of law before all Courts of the State of Maryland.

Steve Fitzgerald was born in Washington, DC, on April 20, 1953, the sixth of seven children, to John L. Fitzgerald and Dorothy O'Donoghue Fitzgerald; he grew up in the shadow of the US Capital in what was then simply known as Southeast. Mr. Fitzgerald's father died in 1960 and thereafter his mother married Edward Holt, a recent widower, with five children. This new union produced one more child, bringing the total brood to thirteen children. Although the youngest and oldest children each had their own bedroom, the middle eleven children shared 3 bedrooms, thus insuring that Mr. Fitzgerald was "close" to his siblings. His parents insisted that their children attend Catholic elementary and high school, even if it required the children to have part-time, after-school jobs to pay their own tuition. Mr. Fitzgerald completed his primary education at St. Peters School in Washington, DC and his secondary education at Bishop McNamara High School in Forestville, Maryland.

Steve Fitzgerald attended the University of Maryland, where he obtained his Bachelor of Arts in 1975, and then moved to Baltimore City, where he obtained his law degree, Cum Laude, from the University of Baltimore, in May of 1978. While in Law School, he was a member of the Heuisler Honor Society.

In 1976, after his first year of law school, he married his high school sweetheart, Linda, and in 1978, the couple ventured to Southern Maryland, seeking respite from city life. During his employment interview with Tom Mudd, John Mudd, and Wayne Munday, in the spring of 1978, Mr. Fitzgerald can recall three questions posed, in order, by his prospective employers: are you are Republican or a Democrat; are you a Redskins fan or Colt fan; and are you intending to get a haircut soon. He must have answered all correctly as he was hired and commenced his association with the firm of Mudd, Mudd & Munday, P.A., in July of 1978. Four years later, he became a principal member of the firm. In 1984, the firm name was changed to Mudd, Mudd & Fitzgerald, P.A. In 2005, he became the managing partner of the firm.

General practice responsibilities that were initially undertaken by Mr. Fitzgerald ran the spectrum from seeking redress for a local farmer whose turkeys were allegedly killed by a neighbor's dog shortly before Thanksgiving, to completing a then 15 year old claim seeking to quiet title to heired property. Mr. Fitzgerald's practice gravitated to Plaintiff's Personal Injury, Insurance Defense, Business Litigation, General Civil Litigation, Collection, and Landlord-Tenant matters.

Civically Mr. Fitzgerald has served on a number of Boards and Councils, including the Executive Board and Board Member of the Charles County Chamber of Commerce, the Parish Council for St. Ignatius Catholic Church, the Board of Directors for the Children's Aid Society, and for the Hawthorne Country Club of Charles County.

Mr. Fitzgerald coached his three sons in youth sports, including soccer and little league; in 1994, while coaching his son, Stephen, as a Southern Charles Little League All-Star, he coached Charles County's team to its first ever Maryland State Championship, for 9 and 10 year olds.

Professionally, Mr. Fitzgerald is a member of Charles County Bar Association (President, 1987), Maryland State Bar Association, the American Bar Association, the Maryland Trial Lawyers Association and is a member of the Federal Bar. He is a Court approved Settlement Conference Facilitator for the Circuit Court for Charles County, a member of the Peer Review Committee of the Attorney Grievance Commission of Maryland and of the Maryland Bar Association Committee on Resolution of Fee Disputes. He is a past member of the Judicial Nominating Commission of the Seventh Circuit. He has served as a committee member of the Civista Medical Center Ethics Committee for 20 years.

In recognition of his professional and public service, he has been elected as a Fellow of the Maryland Bar Association and has recently been recognized by other Maryland Lawyers as a Maryland Super Lawyer, a designation reserved for the top 5% of Lawyers in the State.

The April, 2002 tornado that devastated the Town of La Plata, destroyed the Sydney Mudd Home which had housed the Law Offices of Mudd, Mudd & Fitzgerald, P.A. since 1984. Following the storm, Mr. and Mrs. Fitzgerald and Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Mudd, the building's owners, rebuilt the office using the original siding, wood work, and hardware salvaged from the wreckage so as to duplicate, as much as possible the original structure which had stood since approximately 1894.

Mr. Fitzgerald recalls two noteworthy cases. In the mid 1980's, he was engaged by an insurance company to defend their insured, an "Adult" establishment in Waldorf, that had been civilly sued by their patron for assault and battery allegedly committed by one of the "waitresses". The Plaintiff claimed that his "waitress" had struck him in the face with a beer mug, because, as the Plaintiff contended, he had refused the waitress' persistent invitations to perform a specific type of dance. Following the incident, the waitress fled the scene, never to be heard from again. No one admitted to having witnessed the actual striking. The bartender, however, overheard the waitress, as she stormed out of the bar, say, "He grabbed my _______, so I hit him". Obviously, the Plaintiff disputed that he had grabbed anything and he filed a motion to exclude such testimony as being hearsay. One of the recognized exceptions to the hearsay rule is the "excited utterance" exception, which allows the admissibility of a statement relating to a startling event or condition made contemporaneously with the event. In a Pre-Trial hearing, the presiding Judge ruled that the statement "He grabbed my _______, so I hit him" was, indeed, an excited utterance spoken in the heat of the moment, and would be admissible in evidence. Immediately thereafter, the case settled for a few hundred dollars.

The second noteworthy case recalled by Mr. Fitzgerald involved his representation of a young couple whose 3 year old son was tragically shot and killed by a deranged neighbor. The father was also shot but made a miraculous recovery. In prosecuting the civil claim for damages, Mr. Fitzgerald was able to obtain a judgment in favor of his clients and against the neighbor for, in excess of $18,000,000.00.

Steve and Linda Fitzgerald reside in Swan Point, Maryland. Their four children, Andrew, Matthew, Stephen, and Amy have settled, or are in the process of settling in the Washington ? Southern Maryland area. Linda currently enjoys her position as a Clinical Instructor in the Nursing program at the College of Southern Maryland. Steve enjoys living on the shores of the Potomac, playing golf, and spending time with his children and grandsons, Aidan Thomas and John Cormac (Mac). He continues to manage the practice which has recently expanded to seven lawyers and expects the firm to be viable for generations to come.