Susan Carol Bell

Ms. Bell’s strengths are in writing documents and organization. She was my lawyer during a time when my daughters’ lawyer (BIA) and judge gave me custody of my daughters. However, this victory was due to the extraordinary skill and character of the BIA. I would not rehire Ms. Bell. She went against ...my guidance and threw me a curve ball at the most inopportune moment. This covered up judge malfeasance, caused me to be convicted of contempt without even being told the charges, and shattered my ability to appeal the conviction. Ms. Bell and I had discussed our strategy for my defense, numerous times, including the night before the hearing. I also told her that I did not want her to participate in any clandestine back-room discussions with the judge and opposing counsel. (Whatever goes on in judge’s chambers is totally secret, not recorded, and anything can be said without evidence, biasing the judge.) Disregarding my instructions, Ms. Bell discussed the case in chambers. When she came out of chambers, she told me that the opposing counsel had told the judge that I had filed a grievance against him with the Baltimore County Bar Association and that he had been exonerated. Since I wasn’t invited to chambers, I couldn’t object to or correct this irrelevant misinformation. My perception was that, at this point, the judge and Ms. Bell circled the wagons around their offended colleague. This perception was reinforced by the actions that followed. Ms. Bell told me that the judge heard the case between the two counsels in chambers, had ruled against me, and would not hear the merits of the case in an open hearing. She asked me if I would accept the penalty imposed by the judge or whether I wanted a hearing about the penalty only. I reminded her that the merits of the ruling were what that I wanted heard, since I had not been informed of the charges against me nor had an opportunity to prepare or present my defense. She had told me that by accepting the penalty, the judge promised to forget his accusation of contempt and he would make no record of it anywhere. I found out later that, in reality, I was declaring myself guilty of contempt, which the court later recorded and used against me. All this could have been avoided if she hadn’t gone against my instructions. She also told me that if we chose to pursue an open hearing, she had changed her mind and would not present the strongest points we discussed, namely that I was being denied my Constitutional rights. This meant that she would be handing victory over to the opposition and, if I wanted to win the case, I was without a lawyer. She reminded me that the Court had granted me the major item I wanted (the safety of my children) and my not accepting the clandestine ruling might put that in peril. I agreed that I would accept the sentence the Court had decided on, with the caveat that I still wanted to appeal the merits of the case because I had been deprived my Constitutional rights of due process. (As an Army officer, I am under oath to uphold the Constitution.) The judge later claimed that the ruling was actually an agreement between the two lawyers instead of the judge’s ruling like Ms. Bell told me. Since the hearing was in private, there was no record of who was telling the truth. In conclusion, Ms. Bell allowed the Court to deprive me of my Constitutional rights and destroyed my ability to appeal. The opposing party had absolutely no case and no arguments against the defense we had planned the night before. (I know this because they presented no counter-argument against my points in the appeal.) So, she threw away certain victory to accept a loss that cost me thousands of dollars and that put a contempt of court on my record. Court rules provide her a way to preserve my right to appeal by declaring my acceptance of the judge’s ruling "subject to appeal of the underlying charges". Yet, she failed to declare this in the record, as well.