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Domestic Relations
Divorce, child custody, support, marriage and adoption lie at the heart of our domestic relations practice. With decades of experience across Maryland, D.C. and Virginia, we guide clients through emotionally charged situations—whether negotiation, mediation, collaborative law or litigation. We listen first, protect your rights, and work toward a fresh start for you and your family.
Lawyer Spotlight
Margaret M. Marks
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Margaret (Meg) Marks is a shareholder with Bean, Kinney & Korman, focusing her practice on commercial and civil litigation. Meg strives to counsel each of her clients on the costs, risks, and...
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News & Highlights
A Bombshell for Preemption Precedent- The Supreme Court’s Decision in Hencely v. Fluor and What It Means for Government Contractors
Facts of the Case On Wednesday, the Supreme Court released its opinion in Hencely v. Fluor- reversing the Fourth Circuit, which relied on the “battlefield” preemption rule to dismiss the individual’s tort claims against Fluor. An independent contractor of Fluor’s subcontractor carried out a suicide attack at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan. The plaintiff, Hencely, intervened and stopped the suicide bomber… Read more
OSHA Doubles Down on Workplace Heat Enforcement: What Employers Need to Know About the Expanded Heat National Emphasis Program
With record spring heat impacting the eastern half of the United States, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has taken significant additional steps to elevate workplace heat hazards to the forefront of its enforcement agenda. On April 10, 2026, the U.S. Department of Labor announced a substantial update to OSHA’s National Emphasis Program (NEP) for Outdoor and Indoor Heat-Related… Read more
March 2026 OHR Guidance Highlights Ongoing Harassment Reporting and Training Obligations in the District
March 2026 materials from the District of Columbia Office of Human Rights (OHR) provide employers with a useful snapshot of the agency’s continuing focus on harassment reporting, workplace investigations, and employee training obligations. Although OHR did not release a formal new harassment rule package in March, the agency did update its notices, fact sheets, and training-related guidance tied to the… Read more
512,000 Lines, One Night, Zero Permission: The Claude Code Leak and the Legal Crisis of AI Clean Rooms
On March 31, 2026, Anthropic, the company behind the Claude artificial intelligence system, accidentally published the entire source code of a product called Claude Code inside a routine software update. A missing line in a configuration file shipped 512,000 lines of proprietary code to the public. No hack. No breach. Human error. An important distinction: Claude Code is not the… Read more
DEI Re-Defined: The New Compliance Fault Line for Federal Contractors and Grant Recipients
On March 26, 2026, the White House fundamentally reframed how diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs are evaluated in the context of federal contracts. With the issuance of Executive Order 14398, “Addressing DEI Discrimination by Federal Contractors,” DEI is no longer treated primarily as a cultural or human-capital initiative. Instead, for covered contractors and subcontractors, DEI has become an express… Read more
What Happens When a Donation to Your Nonprofit Goes Bad
In 2012, financier and Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick made a transformative donation to his alma mater, Haverford College, a small liberal arts school in Pennsylvania. Over time, Lutnick’s contributions -- reportedly totaling roughly $65 million -- helped fund major campus initiatives, including the college’s library, which now bears his name. More than a decade later, the institution finds itself… Read more
The Hidden Traps of Restructuring from S-Corp to C-Corp for 1202 QSBS
When you restructure into a C corporation for qualified small business stock (QSBS) treatment but miss even one of Section 1202’s technical requirements, the IRS can deny the exclusion entirely—even if the business itself is an ideal candidate. The central risk in S-corp / LLC-to-C-corp planning is that the restructuring steps are easy to do “almost right,” yet still fail… Read more
The AI Scare Trade Hits Commercial Real Estate: Separating Market Sentiment from Structural Reality
In the span of 48 hours this week, the three largest commercial real estate services firms in the world collectively lost tens of billions of dollars in market capitalization. CBRE Group saw its stock decline more than 20% over two trading sessions. JLL and Cushman & Wakefield each fell by double digits. By Wednesday afternoon, the sell-off had spread to… Read more
When One Employment Agreement No Longer Works: Navigating Non-Compete Risk in the DMV’s Multi-Jurisdiction Workforce
Many employers have historically treated restrictive covenant agreements as standardized documents, developed once, applied to employees nationwide, and updated only periodically. That approach is becoming increasingly obsolete, particularly in the Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia (DMV) region. Recent legislative changes across these neighboring jurisdictions have reshaped how non-compete agreements operate and, in many cases, whether they can be enforced at… Read more
Are Conversations with Artificial Intelligence (AI) Discoverable in Litigation? Lessons from United States v. Heppner
Clients and lawyers alike are increasingly using generative artificial intelligence tools to organize facts, explore legal theories, and draft narrative summaries. But a recent court ruling calls into question whether conversations with AI should be protected in litigation, or whether they are fair game in discovery. This article will briefly explore the typical scope of discovery, documents that are considered… Read more
