Ms. Fleshman has been a partner at Sasscer, Clagett & Bucher for over a decade. She has tried and/or handled hundreds of cases over the course of her 20+ year career as a trial attorney. Her trial experience has enabled her to recover over a million dollars collectively for her clients who have been injured as a result of someone else's negligence. She has handled cases involving wrongful death, medical malpractice, and permanent medical injuries.
Ms. Fleshman is a member of five (5) bars, which include the State of Maryland, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the United States District Court for the District of Maryland (Federal), and the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Early in her legal career, she participated in oral argument in a case which resulted in a victory for a disabled individual who had previously been denied disability benefits. Ms. Fleshman has also appeared and argued cases before the District of Columbia Court of Appeals and the Court of Special Appeals in Maryland.
Ms. Fleshman's trial skills were initially developed during the formative years of her seven (7) year legal career as an Assistant State's Attorney for Prince George's County, Maryland. Her trial skills were further expanded and sharpened as a trial attorney who has been engaged in the private practice of law for many years.
While Ms. Fleshman's past and present trial results speak for themselves, her accomplishments as a trial attorney earned her an Honorary Governor's Citation for her work. In addition, in the civil arena, some of Ms. Fleshman's cases have been the subject of published reports in various Jury Verdict Reporters and in the official published opinions for the Maryland Court of Special Appeals and in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
Some individual and businesses prefer to utilize a mediator or arbitrator to resolve their disputes. Ms. Fleshman is currently available and has previously acted as a civil mediator and/or arbitrator in order to resolve legal disputes outside of a courtroom setting. Others in the legal community, including fellow lawyers and associates who consider Ms. Fleshman's record of success in the courtroom to be impressive, frequently refer cases to her in those situations where the matter at hand requires litigation skills. Ms. Fleshman whole-heartedly recognizes the entitlement of all members of the community to quality legal representation regardless of racial, economic, social, or religious background.
Some of her more noteworthy jury trials and settlements include the following:
- Ms. Fleshman represented a client who was seriously injured and disabled from returning to work in her former work capacity due to significant back and shoulder injuries that she sustained while she was a passenger in an automobile. The client underwent surgery to her low back and to her shoulder area. The insurance company only offered approximately $8,000.00 to settle the case, claiming the client's injuries were pre-existing. Ms. Fleshman fought the case for her client and the jury awarded over $275,000.00 in damages.
- Ms. Fleshman represented a client who was injured when a portion of a ceiling collapsed and fell on her head, neck and shoulder area in the laundry room of an apartment complex. The apartment complex denied any prior knowledge that the ceiling had ever been in a dangerous or defective condition. The apartment complex's representatives also argued that the client was not injured to the extent that she claimed based in part on the fact that she had previously undergone neck surgery. Ms. Fleshman was able to fight the apartment complex's claim that it had no prior notice of the ceiling being in a dangerous or defective condition by a diligent investigation and location of the apartment complex's records. An independent search by Ms. Fleshman revealed that there was indeed a prior record of the defective condition of the ceiling area in the apartment laundry room. As a result of Ms. Fleshman's ability to locate the prior records, the case settled for nearly $300,000.00.
- In a trip and fall case, Ms. Fleshman was able to argue successfully that a storeowner was responsible for negligently placing a concrete rock at the entrance of the business establishment in order to keep the door propped open. The store patron with poor vision attempted to enter the establishment late at night. The concrete rock partially obstructed the entrance, and the walkway was steeply sloped outside of the entrance to the doorway. The store claimed that the placement of the rock was an open and obvious condition that the store patron failed to notice. The client/store patron seriously injured herself when she fell on or over the rock and sustained a torn rotator cuff and carpal tunnel syndrome in her hand. Ms. Fleshman enlisted the aid of an orthopaedic surgeon as an expert witness, who testified that the client was permanently injured. She also enlisted the aid of a building use and safety engineer expert to establish that the storeowner had violated various model codes and building requirements given the placement of the rock at the front door, the lack of lighting, nighttime conditions, and other distracting visual features on display by the store. The jury awarded the client $72,850.00.
- Ms. Fleshman resolved a case involving a client who was severely injured in a rear-end motor vehicle collision while in a stopped position. His injuries to his lower back involved the removal of a disc. Ms Fleshman maintained a lawsuit against multiple individuals because various individuals blamed each other, as well as the client, for causing and/or contributing to the collision. As a tactical maneuver, and before one of the individuals was brought into the lawsuit, Ms. Fleshman had obtained information from this individual that showed her client did not cause or contribute to the accident. Also, a doctor who had been hired by one of the defendants actually provided an opinion which was favorable to Ms. Fleshman's client. The doctor was of the opinion that the client had actually sustained a permanent partial disability as a result of the collision. Ms. Fleshman was able to strategically leverage these events which had unfolded in order to secure a settlement of the case for the insurance policy limits of $100,000.00.
Frequently, clients that Ms. Fleshman has formerly represented in personal injury cases will refer their friends and/or family members to her. In one instance, Ms. Fleshman represented a client in a motor vehicle as well as that client's daughter. Both were injured, but in separate unrelated accidents. In turn, one of these clients referred yet another individual to Ms. Fleshman who was seriously injured. The referred client had sustained multiple injuries in a motor vehicle accident, including broken bones, memory loss, etc. The case involving the referred client was resolved when Ms. Fleshman recovered the insurance company's policy limits.
Ms. Fleshman attended Sidwell Friends High School in Washington, D.C., Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts, and the George Washington University School of Law in Washington, D.C.
