Over the summer of 2014, the Maryland State Bar Association’s Section on Agricultural Law along with the Agriculture Law Education Initiative (ALEI) will be hosting a series of webinars entitled what a Maryland Attorney Needs to Know About Agriculture. The webinars will start on Wednesday June 18th at noon and run for one hour. The webinars will help to make members of the bar more aware of the issues seen in agriculture and ways to better service agricultural clients. For more information on the webinars please contact Paul Goeringer at lgoering@umd.edu. The webinars are free to MSBA members and $25/webinar for non-MSBA members.
The series will kick off on June 18th with Mae Johnson of the Maryland Department of Agriculture. Mae currently serves as the mediation coordinator for MDA’s Agricultural Conflict Resolution Services (ACReS). ACReS provides a host of conflict resolution services in the state from handling nuisance actions that involve the state’s Right-to-Farm law to mediating repayment options with USDA loans. Mae will discuss ways attorneys can utilize ACReS services and how ACReS handles nuisance suits involving agriculture. To sign up for this webinar please go to https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/5272408202746900738.
The next webinar will be on June 25th with speaker Kathleen J. Tabor, Esq. from the Law Office of Kathleen J. Tabor to discuss working with clients in the equine industry. The equine industry is an important aspect of Maryland’s agricultural economy. Kathleen has built her career around working with the equine industry.
On July 9th, the series will continue with Jesse J. Richardson from West Virginia University’s College of Law to discuss water law issues in Maryland. Maryland is seeing more and more agricultural producers switching to utilizing irrigation. With this rise in irrigation usage, opportunities exist for attorneys to aid clients in obtaining irrigation water permits. Prof. Richardson will discuss areas that attorneys in the state should be aware of and strategies to use in aiding clients.
A hot topic in Maryland’s agriculture community is the implementation of the Phosphorus Management Tool (PMT). Dr. Frank Coale of the University of Maryland’s Department of Environmental Science and Technology will discuss the development of the PMT tool and what it means for Maryland farmers on July 16. Throughout his career, Dr. Coale has excelled in development of best management on-farm practices and science-based public policies. This webinar will provide an excellent opportunity to better understand this hot button issue in Maryland agriculture.
We will wrap up our webinar series with Kimberly Manuelides from Saul Ewing and Paul Goeringer from the University of Maryland’s Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics on July 23 to discuss agriculture leasing issues. Kim brings a background of working with clients on lease issues and will provide some guidance to attorneys looking to navigate this sometimes tricky area of the law. Paul brings a background working with the ag community through University of Maryland Extension on leasing issues. Paul will discuss some of the issues that he has seen in talking with farmers to better help attorneys work with farmers on these issues.
Both the Agricultural Law Section and the Agriculture Law Education Initiative hope to continue this webinar series on in the future with new topics. These initial topics only scratch the surface of issues that the Maryland bar could be considering when looking to serve clients in agriculture. Please keep looking to the MSBA’s website or umaglaw.org to see when future webinars will be happening.