Maryland Bar Foundation - Grant Recipient - Community Law Center

MARYLAND BAR FOUNDATION | GRANT RECIPIENT

MBF SUPPORTS

Community Law Center

November 10, 2025, started like any other Monday at the Community Law Center (CLC), a nonprofit law firm that serves neighborhoods, communities, and nonprofits across Maryland.

CLC’s staff handles both corporate governance work and community legal advocacy. Every Monday morning, the staff gathers in person for our weekly staff meeting, reviewing client matters including zoning, environmental justice, community economic development, and nonprofit legal matters. The team gathered in our gorgeous conference room in our offices in the historic “Castle” building at 3355 Keswick Ave in the Baltimore neighborhood of Hampden. The room had enormously tall ceilings, tall windows across the far wall letting warm, bright light across the west side of the room, and a thick wooden conference table where our growing team squeezed their chairs to fit. CLC occupied the second floor of this building for the past 23 years, and accumulated a wealth of client artwork, memories, legal documents, personal items, photos, and, to be fair, clutter! Every time a visitor or client came by for a meeting, they remarked on the historic significance and beauty of the space.

CLC’s longtime senior paralegal, Ingrid Hitchens, would often offer tours with remarkable tidbits of Baltimore history, including showing the cigarette burns along our windowsill from the police detectives who used to work long case hours in that same space.

On November 10, 2025, a particularly cold and brisk day, after the staff meeting, CLC had technology contractors visit our space to review final plans for a renovation of our conference area, which would soon include enhanced capabilities to host hybrid client meetings, speakers, and a large whiteboard and screen. CLC had just, the week before, successfully concluded its annual fundraiser, and staff were excited about the future of our organization—momentum was the word we all kept using.

Around 4 p.m. that day, staff started to smell smoke, which quickly filled the air around their workspaces and in every office.

The smoke detector went off, and staff evacuated the building, which soon was enveloped in large, hot flames.

Photo credit: Lowell Larsson 62

MSBA.ORG | VOLUME 8 ISSUE 1

The CLC team is so very grateful for all of the support from the legal community, the Maryland State Bar Association, and MBF. Cheers to recovery, rebuilding, and moving forward!

The fire at the Castle building was an organizationally catastrophic event for CLC. By all means, the greatest fact is that all of our staff (and others working in the building) were all physically okay. Mentally, staff needed space and resources to process this trauma. Financially, CLC suffered a near-total loss of all belongings, including technology equipment, projectors, outreach materials, furniture, personal belongings, phones and the wiring structure of the phone system, kitchen supplies and appliances, years of holiday decorations, and client mementos. Over 20 years of CLC history and legal/financial documents were within the destroyed space. The nonprofit fire insurance was insufficient to cover this loss. While CLC did have item replacement insurance, there was only enough insurance to replace all of the above items if they had been burned by a fire, not if they were ruined by smoke, extensive water, soot, and related damages.

The total loss was near $700,000. Working

with insurance to recoup all that we could has been a journey. This unexpected disaster has taken a physical, emotional, and financial toll on the organization, especially considering how much growth CLC is in the midst of experiencing.

As the majority of CLC’s clients use phones (not text, the old-fashioned calling feature!) as a primary method of communication, the loss of our phone system was one of the many tremendous barriers to starting our work again. Our grant from the Maryland Bar Foundation (MBF) is fully funding CLC’s new phone system, which allows us to reconnect with new clients, helps our staff feel fully functional in our current temporary space, and brings a bit of normalcy back.

The CLC team is so very grateful for all of the support we’ve received post-fire from the legal community, the Maryland State Bar Association, and MBF. Cheers to recovery, rebuilding, and moving forward!

MARYLAND BAR JOURNAL | VOLUME 8 ISSUE 1

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